Big Problems Behind ‘G.I. Joe 2′s Big Delay
EXCLUSIVE: Ever since I scooped the news a week ago about G.I. Joe: Retaliation moving from June 29th to March 29th, 2013, no one was buying Paramount‘s excuse that “adding 3D” was the only reason for the 9 month delay. Least of all me. So I did some snooping. And what I found out shows the difficult decisions which Hollywood moguls are facing in this challenging box office environment when even franchises aren’t sure things. (Witness last weekend’s Men In Black 3.) And at what point and at what cost do the top execs make changes in their films already shooting or in post-production or even five weeks out from release in order to head off a disaster?
Hollywood was gobsmacked that Paramount vacated the primo date this summer, especially because the studio blew a wad on a Super Bowl commercial and already was starting TV and outdoor ads for GI Joe 2. Not to mention the toys, warehouses full of them ready and waiting, already on shelves. Or the big screen trailer attacjed this past weekend to MIB3. But the fact is that Paramount became extremely concerned about G.I. Joe 2‘s box office prospects worldwide after its test scores were mediocre to 
bad. Reshoots were needed. Plus, the moguls realized what a complete miscalculation it was to kill off Channing Tatum in the sequel. And even more so at the start of the film. You will remember that Tatum wasn’t a star when the first G.I. Joe was released. But since then his back-to-back successes in The Vow and 21 Jump Street have made him into a draw. And it turned out that the only bright spot for audiences as a result of the G.I. Joe 2 testing was the aborted relationship between Tatum and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Plus look at the movie poster for Retaliation: you wouldn’t even know Tatum is in the sequel. Now the movie is being reworked — and reshoots don’t lose a valuable leading man like Tatum by killing him off. “The 3D is an excuse as to not reveal the Tatum of it all,” one of my sources tells me. Of course this June Tatum appears in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike as a stripper (inspired by Tatum’s own experiences, pre-stardom). My sources insist Paramount didn’t want uniformed Channing to compete with stripping Channing on the same weekend. Not with those abs.
Related: Hot Trailer: Channing Tatum In ‘Magic Mike’
Related: ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ Moving To March 2013 To Add 3D For Bigger Foreign Box Office
Here is how Paramount insiders explain to me what happened. And clearly it’s not just because “We’re going to do a conscientious 3D job because we’ve seen how it can better box office internationally” now that Russia and China are building new 3D theaters by the week, as the studio said a week ago:
“This was a case of letting a schedule to fill a summer slot dictate the film not being in 3D even though we knew that would be the most commercial version of the film. Then in the spring there were 2 big events. First John Carter lost $200M despite the best efforts of the Pixar brain trust. But the 3D film managed to gross over $200M overseas, nearly tripling its U.S. take.
“Also Channing Tatum had a breakout spring, starring in The Vow and 21 Jump Street. In our first screening of the film the reaction from audiences was good but with 2 big concerns: 1) They didn’t like the fact that Channing and The Rock really didn’t have any time to develop a friendship before Channing died, and 2) Why wasn’t it going to be in 3D? We went back and shot another week with Channing to develop more of his story with The Rock, which made the film play much better. But we didn’t have the time to be in 3D.
“Then a week ago Battleship basically had the same performance as John Carter – $60M-$70M U.S. and just over $200M international. That was just a wake-up call that said to us we need to offer the best version of the film irrespective of summer market share to ensure the best possible performance. And not being in 3D will cost us a ton of business internationally.”
But the big question is how much this deliberate delay of G.I. Joe 2‘s release will affect the pic’s cost. After all, the cost of MIB3 soared when the time travel elements of Etan Cohen’s script had to be re-worked by Jeff Nathanson who needed more time to pull off the tricky plot device while Cohen worked on another project. So the film shut down for about six weeks, which is a rarity for a major tentpole, and then Cohen came back to finish the movie. That caused the cost to skyrocket from a range of $225M (which is what Sony claims as the budget) to $300M (which is what rival studios say it really was). Between that and all the gross profit participants, that’s a lot of coin before Sony sees profit. Of course, Paramount had to talk its partners on GI Joe 2 into the extra nine months of carrying costs – MGM, which has 25%, and David Ellison’s Skydance, which has another 25%. Paramount sources claim to me that the budget for the $125M-budgeted actioner is stll under control. I’m not sure I believe their claim that the changes will result in just $5M more:
“Several 3D houses had already approached us about doing the film in 3D. This move gives us the time to do it right. We are having conversations with Stereo D and Prime Focus about doing the 3D work for a reduced fee in exchange for a piece of 3D upside. Also, interest rates are very low right now. So 9 months does not have a huge impact on budget. It should stay under $130M.”
Meanwhile, other sources tell Deadline that G.I. Joe 2 director Jon M. Chu is “shellshocked” over the release date move. Paramount kept him on a very tight leash from the beginning of the production. Among other things, they wouldn’t let him bring onboard David Nicksay, who has worked with Chu as executive producer on the Step Up movies and the Justin Bieber documentary. Even The Rock felt forced to calm fan fears about the film like in this Twitter exchange on May 23rd when the delay announcement came down: DwayneJohnson @TheRock It will be. Designing new scenes to enhance 3D. RT: @JimmyinGA: Was looking forward to GI Joe next month. Hope the 3D is worth the wait.
True, Paramount had luck delaying Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island to give the director his biggest box office hit ever. Now the question is whether lightning can strike twice.
Related: Seth MacFarlane’s ‘Ted’ Moving Into June 29th Slot Just Vacated By ‘G.I. Joe 2′
It never made sense to me that they would have two big channing tatum movies opening on the same weekend — but now they were gonna kill him off, huh???? right decision, paramount.
Still don’t get why june 29th is so crowded — with now relocated Ted, magic mike, people like us and madea witness protection — when there is a complete open weekend before dark knight.
Why are people so worried about Magic Mike? That movie will have a very limited audience.
Agreed.
About Magic Mike. Just imagine Channing Tatum trying to promote “G.I. Joe-2″ for the weeks leading-up to the release, and during the first several weeks of the release of the film–the media, from talk shows, to TV magazine shows, and print and radio media, will constantly bring-up “Magic Mike”, just as Tatum is trying to sell G.I. Joe and related toys and other product and endorsement tie-ins for G.I. Joe. It would be a nightmare… marketing wise, considering conservative and religious parents debating if they should take their children to see G.I. Joe, this while Tatum is forced to talk about, or mention Magic Mike and its erotic content. Remember, he is under contract, and must also promote Magic Mike…so you’d see him on Jay Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, Good Morning America, the Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, etc., having to promote both movies, splitting the promotional message and his time, whilst tainting G.I. Joe’s family friendly ad and promotional campaign image, it is simple math, it would be a PR disaster not only for the film and studio, but for its product tie-in partners/merchandisers.
“Why are people so worried about Magic Mike? That movie will have a very limited audience.”
By limited, I guess you mean $113 mil gross off a $7 mil budget? That’s exponentially the buggest hit of the summer.
Because they don’t want to be swallowed up the The Dark Knight Rises after only one week.
Because Madea is niche, and People Like Us and Magic Mike will do no business at all.
Have I missed something somewhere? I keept hearing about people wanting to get out of The Dark Knight’s way in the late June slot, but TDK is opening July 20th, so if you open on June 29th, you have 3 weekends (and a 4th of July holiday) to make your money. That is 70% of the business for a movie like GI Joe.
Do people actually mean get out of the way of Spider-man? I may be off, but that one screams of underperformance for me. I feel like we have Men in Black 3-type numbers coming from it.
I saw a preview for The Amazing Spiderman when I saw MIBIII. That movie looks off the chains awesome, and I not generally a comic book movie fan. I don’t know how well it will open, but word of mouth will put it through the roof IMO
Even if Magic Mike does open, the target demo for that is WAY different than Ted.
So basically this is saying a.) Channing gets resurrected and b.) the studio wants to make sure it can sell its most expensive (read: 3D) ticket?
The toy roll out that was to go hand in hand with this is taking up a ton of warehouse space too, and some companies dependent on cash flow will not be happy, but better a successful film and late moving merchandise, than discount bins in week 2.
Oh the arrogance of Adam Goodman is finally catching up to him. You can run, but you cant hide Adam. The Dictator and now this…these films are on your watch. No excuses…tick tock tick tock…better start being nice again fast Adam…otherwise you may not get your calls returned when your a producer next year!
Adam is a putz who will be shown the door very soon. He’s a moron. Brad Grey should also be forced out the sooner the better. Paramount used to be a great studio. Bring back Sherry Lansing. I’m serious.
Everything about this movie is a disaster… Sommers salvaged the first one by making it look big – though it was the worst script with the most writers in this century. Chu was a terrible choice and overmatched; movie never should have been made in the first place. American audiences are done supporting this dreck. International auds aren’t, as evidenced by BATTLESHIP’s intl. grosses.
You haven’t seen the movie yet you’re bashing it. Everything I’ve seen in the trailer looks good. Cobra Commander actually looking like Cobra Commander, check. No Baroness as Channing Tatum’s girlfriend subplot, check. No ‘accelerator suits’, check. Bruce Willis and the Rock, check. Ninja battle on the mountaintops, check. Chu realized what a turd the last movie was so he threw all the worthless actors and their characters in the trash and started again. He knew he wasn’t allowed to do a reboot so he did the next best thing. If this movie sucks it will be because the studio butted in where it didn’t belong.
I was in a test audience for the rough cut. It was terrible. Audible boos throughout the movie, a few chuckles at “serious” moments. When I heard the film was delayed, I wasn’t surprised.
Oh, how I miss the days of Marci X and The Fighting Temptations.
Before Adam is shown the door, he will fire his subordinate to try to cover his ass. He sent him to watch over the film and you can see what a good job he did.
When that fails, Brad will then fire Adam. And then Brad will be gone if he can’t create some fake wunderkind to give his bosses faith that he can pull it out.
This is the game people.
Oy vey AG sure is a putz. The creative process at Paramount is ridiculous, and clearly not working.
I know this is hardly Aint-It-Cool-News, but wow, that’s quite a spoiler to drop about Channing Tatum’s character. Although, I was wondering up until now why he wasn’t on the poster.
Is it really a spoiler if it’s not going to happen?
The news isn’t a spoiler, it’s in the first trailer and has been known since December after long rumors of the event. The US (fake) President orders a strike on the Joe team, having amazingly shrunk from giant underground base to small party of 40 camping in the desert, in retaliation for the blame of a prison break which freed Storm Shadow and Cobra Commander. The only survivors, seen climbing back up a well they ducked into in the trailer, are Roadblock, Flint, and Lady Jaye. Roadblock states clearly that they are the only surviving members of the team.
Snake-Eyes is elsewhere during the attack and mostly operates independently along with his apprentice Jinx. Bruce Willis plays Joe Colton, the “original” GI Joe and Adventure Team Commander, who is brought in to help get revenge on the newly anointed security force of Cobra & the (fake) US President. Destro is left to a cheesy line from Cobra Commander. The Baroness and all the remaining Joes from Rise of Cobra are not mentioned.
The loosely written script combines the idea of the recent cartoon GI Joe: Renegades, which itself was a poor adaptation of The A-Team’s plot, and Larry Hama’s return to comic book writing with GI Joe issue #156, which has Cobra working for the US government and hunting down the remaining Joes for treason.
GEEK ALERT…
I’m just bustin’ your balls. Thanks for the insight.
For Reals.
GI Blows
I mean, does anyone care? The question you might ask is if you even know anyone that saw the first one? I am not talking about a friend of a friend, but a first tier contact.
The first one was terrible outside of Snake Eyes but this new one looks legit. Firefly, Flint, Lady Jaye, etc. And how can anyone front on Jinx?
I tell you one thing… Channing Tatum is about to get crazy bank to lure him back.
The one person I know that saw it said “I wanted to throw my soda at the screen”. And he played with GI Joe toys as a kid and really wanted to like it.
i feel that the movie was bad because they killed off one of the most important people of the joes which was duke because of a dam movie he played in. come on guys he was just trying to make some money and put is name out here no one flip out like this when they made a movie about two gay cowboys get a life and stop massing with people and lives
The first movie wasn’t just bad, it was one of my Bottom Feeders of the year. IIRC, it finished second worst behind that year’s Adam Sandler epic.
I saw the first one… on cable, years after it came out, mostly switching back between it and something else because I couldn’t STAND to watch it for long. It was so terrible. Still, I was shocked to find that they killed off most of the characters from the first movie; way to say “we hated the first one, too, guys.”
The first movie was stain in the underwear of any Joe fan out there. It was so bad even die hard fans like myself paid money just to see HOW BAD IT WAS.
I myself said I wouldnt pay to see another raping of the characters I grew up with like the trash that is Transformers. But the more trailers I see the better written and acted this movie is over the first. Maybe they finally realized that Marlon Wayans is not an action hero and will never grace these type of movies again.
I saw it, and I loved it. And judging from the numbers lots of people saw it. The only bad thing was Marlon Wayans. I have no idea how that guy ever gets cast. But I was looking forward to seeing this. A guilty pleasure, perhaps. Good idea to bring back Channing. Its necessary.
Is Lorenzo capable of making a good movie? If writers and directors are labeled as hacks, why not someone like Lorenzo. Great, you make money with Transformers and make/lose money with this franchise. But you could have just worked in the business world if money is the only objective.
Make even one half-way decent movie Lo. We’re waiting.
The guy’s track record is insanely bad on the quality side of things, even if his movies often make money. I mean, The Devil Inside? Ugh.
Lorenzo needs to look at himself as a professional athlete. All above the line talent needs to. At some point, it’s not just about the numbers you put up. It’s about your legacy, about championships.
It’s about Oscars, nominations and/or critical acclaim. When your gone, your grandchildren may have a nice house, but everyone they’re around will have a nice house. They won’t be able to say, “Hey, let’s pop in Transformers 2,” because their peers will be like, “Okay, your grandpa made terrible movies. Let’s do something else.”
Lorenzo needs to get away from MAN ON A LEDGE, and find well written scripts and produce the hell out of them. Same with anyone with clout; I don’t mean to pick on only him. But you can’t just lean back on “I make money.” You also make dreck that is the entertainment version of poison, and everyone judges you for it.
People knock on say, Wes Anderson, but he’s now getting the best reviews of his career. I didn’t like his previous film, thought it was completely overrated and frankly, boring, but it garnered terrific reviews as well. When that dude is gone, no one is going to care that his films lost money, he’s going to have a resume with 10 films that got about 85% or higher on RT. And that legacy will speak for itself, even if his stuff is twee.
I am sorry, but if people like watching these movies, then thats what he should make. No ONE likes the movies that win Oscars! They are usually about mentally retarded, gay or ugly individuals, and snobs adore that stuff. But the rest of us just want to have fun. The first JI Goe Movie was not badly written. its simple, but effective. Its got a much better script then Prometheus. Thats certain.
They Better not kill duke now
After the studio screwed over everybody from part one, this mess is exactly what they deserve. As a lifelong fan of GI Joe I very much enjoyed the first movie. It had flaws. The power suits were silly, Marlon Wayans was annoying. But there was enough there to build from and fix. They didn’t need to scrap every single thing about it and start over.
And killing off Channing Tatum? Let’s get it right, that means they’re killing off DUKE. Duke, the main character of GI Joe for 30 years. Say what you will about Michael Bay’s Transformers but even he ain’t stupid enough to kill off Optimus Prime in the 2nd movie. G.I. Joe without Duke is like a Batman movie with no Batman.
The first movie at least seemed to be made by people that liked and got what G.I. Joe was. This new movie may end up a better movie, but it won’t be a better G.I. Joe movie.
That’s funny, b/c I had the opposite reaction to the first movie. I grew up w/ GI Joe toys and cartoons but the movie was such an awful CGI crapfest that nothing would compel me to watch a sequel.
Unless, of course, it’s playing on TNT and the batteries fail on my remote control, then maybe. And that’s a BIG maybe.
Although I relate with your annoyance about the studio decisionmaking, I disagree very much on the particulars.
First of all, GIJOE’s central character was never Duke. What irritates me about this whole thing is that they made a decision and now are suddenly backtracking because “Channing Tatum is now popular?” Seriously? The studio should grow some balls and stick to their decision. Let me predict what’s going to happen based on this article. The movie will be reshot so that Duke and Roadblock are now best buds. Instead of Duke dying, he will go into a coma and an extra scene will be added so that Roadblock will visit him in the hospital during the darkest time of the 2nd act. “What do I do, Duke? How do I lead this team?” Then the Joe team wil win the battle, Duke will wake up from his coma, and all will be right for part 3.
I was looking for to this new GIJOE. Now, I’ll wait for Redbox.
so, the plot of the original G.I. Joe: The Movie.
sorry to burst your bubble, “first of all”, but “Duke” has in fact been the central character of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe – A Real American Hero franchise. To elaborate, in 1982 it was “Hawk” whom was initially designated as team-leader, but he was replaced the following year by “Duke” in 1983 and has remained with the Joes continuity for the passed quarter-century. Snake-Eyes became the most popular due to the kung-fu and ninja movie boom of the 1980s, but was never the leader. When Hasbro tried to retire “Duke” and bring back Hawk as “General Hawk”, he was nowhere near as popular and his figures languished as they dangled on the pegs in the toy aisles. Even at the peak of “Hulkamania” and WWF wrestling, “Sgt. Slaughter” failed to overtake “Duke” in popularity, and is nothing but a memory today. “Flint” became little more than a love-interest for “Lady Jaye”.
Ironically, history IS actually repeating itself: when Hasbro first decided to retire the “Duke” figure and replace him with “General Hawk” back in 1986-1987, they arrnged to have Duke killed-off by “Serpentor” in the G.I. Joe animated movie, and in post-production they reversed their decision and decided not to! The animated movie was redubbed so that Duke merely ‘slipped into a coma’, and by the ending it was announced off-screen that “Duke will be okay!”
’nuff said.
Not sure if you ever saw it, but they did actually kill off Optimus Prime in the original “Transformers: The Movie.” And the backlash was so bad, they had to bring him back to life in later cartoon episodes.
I completely agree, this is a big mistake to kill off most of your main characters from the first film. I mean what type of business are these guys. It is a franchise why would you ruin your franchise off the bat. And if your going to kill off everyone at least explain what happen to them instead of using an umbrella excuse that they all died in the ambash. Granted Tatum was not a great Duke, but he is still Duke. Please read a comic book or watch the cartoon before writing a script. This is about as bad as the first X-Men movie.
Well, knowing all this, it seems that Paramount is, now, definitly making the right decsion. They just should have had a bit more foresight.