Now that Paramount has a director for its GI Joe movie (yes, those toy adaptations are breaking out of development hell thick and fast thanks to Transformers) in The Mummy’s Stephen Sommers, the studio has also locked down a scriptwriter to pen the latest draft: Stuart Beattie.

Here’s the thing about Beattie – when he’s good, he’s great, as with Collateral. When he’s bad, we get Derailed. It’s far too early to know which Beattie will show up to play in GI Joe’s sandpit, but then he is working for Sommers, a man so in love with OTT blockbuster action you get the idea that Alan Bennett could deliver one of his trademark tales and Sommers would pimp it out with digi-trickery.

It’s also not clear whether Beattie will ditch the current, many-drafted script and start afresh, but we do know he’ll be working within the basic Joe plot – the heroes of the Global Integrated Operating Entity battling Cobra, an organisation dedicated to the pursuit of evil, and led by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer. Because after all, what’s worse than a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer.

Hate mail from evil Scottish arms dealers can be sent to anyone but us.