Directed by Stephen Sommers from a screenplay by Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett, the film features an ensemble cast based on the various characters of the toy line.

After leaked drafts of the script were criticized by fans, Larry Hama, writer of the comic book series G.I.

Joe: The Rise of Cobra premiered at the Andrews Air Force Base on July 31, 2009, and was released in the United States on August 7, by Paramount Pictures, following an extensive marketing campaign focused on the Mid-American public.

McCullen is revealed to be using the same nanotechnology to build an army of soldiers with the aid of the Doctor, planning on using the warheads to cause worldwide panic and bring about a new world order.

The Joes locate the secret base and fly there, as McCullen loads the three remaining warheads onto missiles, which are aimed for Beijing, Moscow, and Washington, DC.

Meanwhile, Zartan, having had his physical appearance altered by nanomites, infiltrates the White House during the missile crisis and assumes the identity of the President of the United States, thus completing a part of McCullen's plan to rule the world.

[39] Beforehand, Don Murphy was interested in filming the property, but when the Iraq War broke out, he considered the subject matter inappropriate, and chose to develop Transformers (another Hasbro toy line) instead.

"[38] By February 2005, Paul Lovett and David Elliot, who wrote di Bonaventura's Four Brothers, were rewriting Gordon's draft.

[41] In their script, the Rex character is corrupted and mutated into the Cobra Commander, whom Destro needs to lead an army of supersoldiers.

[42] Skip Woods was rewriting the script by March 2007, and he added the Alex Mann character from the British Action Man toy line.

Di Bonaventura explained, "Unfortunately, our president [George W. Bush] has put us in a position internationally where it would be very difficult to release a movie called G.I.

"[4] The script was leaked online by El Mayimbe of Latino Review, who revealed Woods had dropped the Cobra Organization in favor of the Naja / Ryan, a crooked CIA agent.

[46] Sommers partly signed on to direct because the concept reminded him of James Bond, and he described an underwater battle in the story as a tribute to Thunderball.

[51] To speed up production before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, John Lee Hancock, Brian Koppelman and David Levien also assisted in writing various scenes.

Joe as being a Brussels-based outfit whose name stands for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity",[55] there were reports of fan outrage over Paramount's alleged attempt to change the origin of G.I.

base in the Arctic, his legitimate weapons factory in an ex-Soviet state, as well as filming various submarines' interiors, including a SHARC (Submersible High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft) crewed by two G.I.

[63] While filming in the city on April 26, people were injured when a bus and several cars collided with a four-wheel-drive vehicle that appeared to have braking problems.

[54] Sommers felt "almost 100 percent" of the technology in the film would actually become available within 10 to 20 years, citing the various books and magazines about developing weapons that he loved reading.

[71] For the nanomites, designers used two proprietary software applications for their depiction—one made by Digital Domain, and another by Prime Focus VFX, which also created tools to generate 3-D cloud and sky environments for the aerial scenes.

[72] Many scenarios were almost fully developed by CGI, such as the landing platform of the Pit, the Cobra ice caves,[72] and the final underwater battle.

When the pulse cannon fires upon the main submarine during the polar assault, the sound of a program de-resolution from the 1982 cult movie classic TRON can be heard.

Joe action figures were dropped from a 42-story Kansas City hotel roof and soared across 500 feet to the ground at the 16th Annual International G.I.

Joe: The Rise of Cobra was released on November 3, 2009, on Blu-ray and DVD in regular and two-disc editions, and later[92][93] as a book[94] and as a video game.

Joe: The Rise of Cobra is largely a cartoonish, over-the-top action fest propelled by silly writing, inconsistent visual effects, and merely passable performances.

[109] Chuck Wilson of The Village Voice criticized the dialogue and described the underwater battle as "absurdly overproduced, momentarily diverting, and then instantly forgettable".

[110] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times considered the plot "at once elemental and incomprehensible",[111] and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone thought that, despite the high budget, the special effects "look shockingly crappy; the Eiffel Tower appears to be destroyed by some green slime left over from the Ghostbusters films".

[109] Matthew Leyland from Total Film called it "a throwaway blast of solid, stupid fun" and gave it three out of five stars, particularly praising Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance as the treacherous Cobra Commander.

[113] Sister publication SFX called the film "dumb and dopey, with plenty of bumpy bits" and that "GI Joe has a genuine cliffhanger charm, especially when the last act becomes a whole string of pulp plot twists.

[115] Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times criticized the excessive flashbacks, but praised the action scenes and design, and considered that Marlon Wayans "steals the show".

Written by Daniel Strange and Kevin Umbricht, and featuring celebrities such as Olivia Wilde, Zach Galifianakis, Alexis Bledel, Henry Rollins, and Vinnie Jones, the video short parodies several characters from G.I.