Claiming that they needed to spend nine months to add 3D, a lot of people called BS on Paramount, and for good reason, too. I mean, come on, give me a break. Nine months to add 3D? Really? That’s a two or three month job at the most. I understand that most of the summer release spots were taken, but why not just release it in the fall?
CinemaBlend has the entire scoop, and instead of just rewriting it less eloquently for fear of committing plagiarism (and a general lack of motivation on my part), I’ll post what they had on their article regarding GI Joe: Retaliation:
“Paramount decided to shift G.I. Joe: Retaliation to next winter and the reason is because the studio wasn’t confident that the movie could compete with Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man. Set to be released on July 3rd, webhead would have only given G.I. Joe five days, at most. at the top of the box office, and many anticipate that the success of The Avengers will translate to greater success for all superhero movies, including our friendly neighborhood webslinger. Also helping out box office numbers next year will be the added 3D, which should pad Paramount’s international numbers quite nicely.
But the other reason for the move is Mr. Channing Tatum. Watching the trailers for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, it’s pretty clear that Tatum, who played Duke in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, bites the big one early in the film. With 21 Jump Street and The Vow performing as well as they did, however, the studio is thinking that killing Tatum off wasn’t the best idea in the world. It’s expected that in the next nine months Tatum will be brought in for re-shoots so that they can expand his part – which is a clean way of saying that he could be resurrected.”
This is both interesting and disappointing. Initially I loved the bold choice to kill of Tatum in the first act. Then again, considering both Bruce Willis AND The Rock are in this movie, bringing Channing Tatum back for a third act showdown might not be such a bad idea, but it’s just too predictable. I understand the attempt to make as much money as possible, but if you’re going to make a move as ballsy as that, at least have the nerve to stick through with it until the end.
Ok, so I think we can all agree that GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was a horse shit movie, and this is a fact that apparently was not lost on the filmmakers. They took the opportunity to create a sequel and immediately killed off everyone from the first movie – Brilliant. Cut ties with that dog shit. They traded out Dennis Quaid for Bruce Willis – win. Replace Marlon Wayans with The Rock? Super win. Then you add in pieces like Boyd Crowder, The Punisher, and my girl Adrianne Palicki – I’m actually excited for the sequel to a movie I almost walked out on.
Here is the official synopsis and new images for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, courtesy of Stark Industries:
A follow-up to the 2009 release of G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, which grossed over $300M worldwide, Paramount Pictures, MGM and Skydance Productions, in association with HASBRO and di Bonaventura Pictures, commences production on G.I. JOE: RETALIATION. In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Ray Park, Adrianne Palicki, Jonathan Pryce, RZA, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe(R) characters, the film is scheduled to be released on June 29,2012.
In addition to several more pictures (Below), and the trailer we already showed you, there is also a new trailer after the jump…
Movie looks pretty entertaining. Willis will be his usual wise cracking badass, and we’re sure to see Snake Eyes kicking some ass, and you can even argue that it is an upgrade at director with Jon M. Chu replacing Stephen Sommers. And seriously, how often can you can the Director of Step Up 3 and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is an upgrade over anyone? Well that is how much I despise Sommers, who is constantly handed awesome projects and consistently churns out mediocre films.
Anyhow, here are some more pictures from the movie, collected from around the web…
Looks like most of this movie will be spent with people pointing their guns at stuff.
And now, just for fun, here are some important lessons from the Joes…
DOGS ARE RACIST:
DON’T BE A DICKHEAD
DEEP SIX & LEATHERNECK LIKE KIDS IN BATHING SUITS
IF YOU GIVE A STRANGER YOUR ADDRESS, THEY WILL RAPE YOU
What can I say about Journey 2: The Mysterious Island? It was a little better than I expected and had some great visuals. Also, even though it seems like the Rock is just put into movies to lure the mindless masses into the movie theater, he actually kind of made the movie better than it would have been. The plot seems to be loosely based off of the first movie which I only saw bits and pieces of, but Josh Hutcherson (Soon to be in The Hunger Games.) returns as Sean Anderson who is an adventurer/scientist on a mission to find his grandfather Alexander Anderson who has gone missing and has apparently been looking for Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island for about half of his life. Really, it seems like they just cobbled together the pretense for them to head out and find the grandfather and mysterious island in about thirty seconds…. Which they probably actually did. Anyways, the Rock, who plays Sean’s gigantic, ex-Navy, stepfather decides to help Sean break a code sent from his grandfather in an attempt to be closer to him family wise. What Mr. The Rock didn’t count on was Sean being right that there is indeed a Mysterious Island. A Mysterious Island they have no way of getting off of before impending disaster strikes.
Really, the movie was never meant to be an Academy Award winner and it definitely wasn’t. With the acting talents of Vanessa Hudgens and Luis Guzman (As the father-daughter helicopter team that brought them to the island) intermingled with those of Josh Hutcherson and The Rock, they don’t measure up anything near to Michael Caine. What Rock doesn’t have in acting ability he more than makes up for in hilarity. There is a scene in the movie where he “pops” his pectoral muscles for about three minutes as he urges Josh Hutcherson and Guzman to bounce berries off of them. This as you know, is a sure fire way to win over any woman. The scene had me laughing my ass off, the Rock urging Hutcherson to “Feed them. They’re not going to stop until you do.” As funny as I found the scene, I can only imagine that young kids and their parents were probably left puzzled as to what in the shit they brought their kids to. But oh well, it made me laugh.
There’s been so much talk of a ‘Luke Cage’ movie that all of the build up will probably ruin the movie if it ever gets made. There have been almost a dozen actors vying for a role that hasn’t even really been offered to anyone. From Tyreese to Rampage Jackson to the Old Spice guy, this role is much sought after by any African-American actor with muscles. Now another musclebound actor has thrown his hat into the ring of Luke Cage. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has been communicating a lot of his acting activities through Twitter, a couple of weeks back it was about his role in GI Joe Retaliation, and more recently he tweeted this about Luke Cage:
Now of course there’s been some outcry from Luke Cage fans due to a little something called ‘skin color’. He’s just not black enough they say….
Man oh man. They change a white comic character in a movie to a black guy and there’s outcry. You cast a kind of black guy as a black comic character? Outcry. It’s terrible. I guess it will always be an issue in comic movies when it comes to race. The Skrulls better still be green if they show up in the Avengers movie next year! So what does everyone think? Would The Rock make a good Luke Cage or would one of the other self-nominees be a better pick? Personally I’d go with Tyreese Gibson.
I don’t think that anything could possibly redeem the G.I. Joe movie franchise at this point since that crapfest that was the first G.I. Joe, but I’m sure giving the people behind this movie some credit for trying thus far. The cast seems too good to be true… or to be in this movie. Not only is Channing Tatum returning (Puke), but there are some newcomers you may have heard of. The first is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who recently twittered a picture of him as his character in the sequel, Roadblock:
Now I’m not saying the Rock is a great actor but he definitely has the ability to draw people to the box office. His star presence helped push the latest Fast and Furious movie to the brink of box office juggernaut. Also joining up into the ranks is the one and only Bruce Willis as G.I. Joe commander Joe Colton. This one surprised me the most and made me wonder if Willis was going the Samuel L. Jackson route of just appearing in any movie that would pay him. Also joining the film are Walton Goggins (The Shield, Justified), Ray Stevenson (Book of Eli, Punisher: War Zone), and Adrianne Palicki, the hot Wonder Woman who never saw the light of day. That is one decent cast filled with a lot of actors/actresses that I enjoy, minus Channing Tatum of course. Once they manage to get a trailer out I can pass judgement on whether or not I’ll be sucked in by this follow-up to that Stephen Sommers piece of trash.
Have you checked the Zodiac lately? Because it is of course the year of the sequel. That’s right, 27 major studio sequels to be exact. It must be the current Hollywood fad right now to give every movie a 3D sequel. Below are recently announced and upcoming movies that follow up other movies that did not warrant a sequel to begin with. Actually some didn’t even deserve to have a first one made, but let’s go over them:
Bad Santa 2
According to IGN Billy Bob Thornton is in talks to reprise his role as the foul-mouthed mall Santa from the first 2003 movie. But the biggest question is why? Do we really need a sequel to such a let down, crude movie starring an actor who hasn’t had a decent role since his only noteworthy acting turn in Sling Blade? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for crude movies. I love ’em. But a sequel to Bad Santa eight or nine years after the fact seems like doing a sequel to Battlefield Eartha decade later. Admittedly, I may just be hating on Billy Bob because he effectively ruined any fantasy I could have about Halle Berry, after sloppily plowing her in Monsters Ball. Thank you Mr. Thornton, that is now burned into my retinas.
American Pie 4: American Reunion
I’m not really sure how this one will go, but I’m pretty sure they’ll have no problems rounding up the likes of Chris Klein, Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari and Tara Reid to do this movie. Lord knows they aren’t doing anything of note at this point in their careers. Eugene Levy and Sean William Scott are the only ones who will add any entertainment to this, the fourth entry into the American Pie franchise. Well, it’s the fourth if you’re not counting the four Direct-to-DVD sequels starring no one from the originals except Eugene Levy.
Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance
The first Ghost Rider was so bad I honestly think I’ve somehow erased it from my memory, or aliens did because the recurrent nightmares I kept having from its suckiness interrupted their sleep study of me. This is one movie there should not be a sequel of. Reboot? Maybe. But a sequel, yet again starring Nicholas Cage? No! No! No! I don’t care if nothing from the first film is mentioned, because having to look at Cage’s face the entire time will only be a constant reminder of how much scum inhalation the first movie performed. (Basically the movie was a scum sucker.) Seriously Cage, turn Drive Angry into a franchise and get it over with.
Honestly, I did enjoy the 2010 version of Clash of the Titans. It was entertaining to me, and I saw it in 2D instead of that “slimy piece of worm ridden filth” (Thank you Han Solo) they tried to pass off as a 3D feature. Imagine how I would have enjoyed it if actors like Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson were utilized better, and the story didn’t seem like a fan fiction written by a 16-year old ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ fan. The effects and action were good, but I was hoping they would just end it with Clash of the Titans being an entertaining, dumb action flick. But no, they’ve come back for more. At least the story for Wrath of the Titans sounds decent, you can read about that here.
Fast Five
This Fast and the Furious sequel just got downright lazy. Maybe the next one will just be called Fast6, all bunched together like that. I was not a fan of the first movie, didn’t get a chance to see the second one, and flat out refused to see the Tokyo Drift. And though I actually enjoyed the fourth movie, Fast and Furious, Fast Five looks extremely entertaining to me, so I will be checking it out even if it wasn’t warranted. I mean come on, they are throwing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson into the mix. However, if they had decided to end the franchise with number 4 I wouldn’t have cared at all.
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Two words sum up Revenge of the Fallen for me; Colossal Failure. It took me awhile to come to grips with that, but multiple views at theater, and a purchase on DVD finally did it. That’s when I noticed more and more how terrible the film was when robots weren’t beating the ever-loving cybernetic crap out of each other. Shame on me. Even though the franchise should have ended with part two, it was a given with the amount of box office cash it raked in that a 3rd installment was inevitable. But that doesn’t mean it should be happening. This is another I will be seeing, giving Michael Bay a second chance to make something even comparable to the first Transformers. I may be setting myself up for a huge fit of gouging my eyes out at the theater, but that is a risk that I’m willing to take.
Now I understand I’ve committed to seeing half of the movies I just described as being ‘sequels we don’t need’, but I can’t do anything to stop them from being cranked out of the Hollywood machine. So I’ll just buckle up and hope the ride doesn’t suck too much.
Grizzly Bomb 