Building on its reputation as Hollywood’s Miracle Village, the Floridian safe haven for sex pests, Paramount has tapped yet another disgraced Hollywood power player for an upcoming project. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Max Landis, who was accused of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse by eight women in 2019, has been hired to write one of two scripts for an upcoming G.I. Joe reboot. The son of director John Landis was something of a golden goose for movie studios hoping to understand the burgeoning superhero movie genre, having come to prominence with a popular YouTube video about Superman. He also wrote the revisionary, found-footage superhero film Chronicle before a string of duds for film and TV, including American Ultra, Mr. Right, and Victor Frankenstein. The one bright spot would be Bright, which was one of Netflix’s earliest hits despite a critical drubbing.
In hiring Landis before The Daily Wire could, Paramount continues to show no compunction about working with the MeToo-era ghosts or concern for their employees’ safety, willing to work with Landis, Brett Ratner, or UFC’s Dana White, who was filmed a few years ago slapping his wife and who Paramount just entered a ridiculous $7.7 billion deal with. It certainly aligns with Paramount-Skydance’s rightward lurch toward the “MeToo has gone too far” culture-war coverage that CBS News head Bari Weiss churned out at The Free Press, which Paramount CEO David Ellison acquired for $150 million. We suppose this is all part of the studio’s attempt at being more “America-centric,” as Variety reported in November, in its quest to both impress the White House and siphon off Fox News viewers.
For what it’s worth, Paramount is developing two G.I. Joe scripts. The other comes from Danny McBride. McBride has never been great at adapting other franchises to his voice (see: Halloween and Exorcist: Believer), but, hey, it’s an improvement on someone who’s been accused of being a “serial rapist, gaslighter, physical and psychological abuser.”