G.I. JOE 2 TO RETALIATE IN MARCH OF 2013 INSTEAD

What's the buzz on this?  Reaction to the trailers seemed solid, but I've heard nothing from screenings or the like.

 

Devin seems to think it's because the movie is a disaster.

Finally, GI Joe 2 will reach its destiny in the line of bad GI Joe movies! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?

Uhh---is this real? Is it confirmed! Crazy! Do people think Battleship failed because of the lack of 3D? 

Edited by Parker - 5/24/12 at 3:53am

Somebody at Vern's site was apparently at a screening. He says that the Ninja/Storm Shadow stuff is great. But the rest of the action stuff is shot in a very unsatisfying unclear manner.

I had no interest in the first one but with the additions of The Rock and Bruce Willis I was really looking forward to this. Damn. Maybe The Rock will have to go back to wrestling full time. 

That kind of muddled action is going to look terrible in 3D. Yikes. Pulling a summer blockbuster just a month before release. Pretty much without precedent. Something must be up, something bad. Neither 3D nor Battleship seem like good enough explanations on their own.

Does this mean we can go back to making fun of the director?  Because that was a universal first reaction to the movie.

Why March? I don't get why they would push it back so late. Why not fall? I'd definitely go see this movie the weekend after Thanksgiving. 

There is absolutley no way that this isn't a sign that the movie is terrible. It was a month from release.

Well, fuck. A little over a month before it's release date DAMMIT!

Damn, was actually sort of looking forward to seeing this. The first movie was about as good as a GI Joe movie could be. Such a weird decision to change dates like this.

I don't get it though, when has a studio ever shied away from releasing crap?  If it did get bumped for reshoots, how bad did it have to be?

UGH!  I guess it was of...Paramount Importance to...Chu, things over, about how the Joe Team would respond to the drastic military cutbacks scheduled for early next year.

I've seen it suggested (pure speculation, mind you) elsewhere that its' greatest "crime" may have been being "OK" in a summer already presumed to be loaded with "Holy Shit Awesome."

In possibly related news, a Brinks truck is being backed into Channing Tatum's driveway right now.

 

Maybe.

 

If they're doing reshoots, I would bet my last dollar that part of it is to make sure Tatum doesn't bite it in the first act, or at the very least comes back for the climax.

 

Man, how much money are they giving up by leaving the table 5 weeks before release? Has there ever been anything like this before with a big release like this? And how much of that can they recoup by post-coverting to 3D?

Thanks Paramount...

 

You really think Channing Tatum is the difference between win and fail here?

Translation: the movie fucking sucks, Paramount doesn't want to be embarrassed, praying 3D will cushion the fall, etc.  

 

Well, since I abhor 3D, may I please watch the 2D cut now?  Please?  I asked nicely.

weak. I enjoyed the first one and was looking forward to this one.

 

Bearing in mind the complete unreliability of IMDB, but folks there that claim to have seen screeners said the "post movie questionnaire" focused heavily on the fate of Duke in the movie.  Get enough women and teenage girls in the screening audiences and yeah...suddenly Tatum might become a major factor.

Eh, I'm gonna take a video-game mentality here and chalk this up as a slight positive. Yes, bad film is bad, but at least they're (possibly) making an effort to fix it rather than just dumping it out. And if it still sucks in March it's not like we've really missed out on anything.

I thought it was sort of ballsy to kill off Tatum. I never really got his appeal in the first place. It's unfortunate if the studio was bullied into resurrecting the character. He's no Sherlock Holmes.

This delay stuns me though. I've never seen anything like it before. So much wasted money, so much confusion and deferred hype. They must already have the GI JOE slurpee cups ready to go and everything. None of the stories make sense. They decided they wanted this to be 3D a month before release? It was such an urgent realization they delayed the film till next year?

 

Yeah, there's definitely more than just "Well, we decided we want to make it 3D" going on, that's for sure.  It may have been a perfect storm of Paramount realizing they had a lousy release date, tepid screening reactions, and some "brilliant" Paramount executive going "Hey!  There's money in this 3D stuff overseas!"

Next March is way too long to wait. If they don't want people to be completely turned off by this they should at least bump it up to fall. Like I said I think this would be a perfect movie for the weekend of Thanksgiving. 

 

Not at all, but, if they think they have a dog on their hands, and they're putting a band-aid on it, They'd probably want to up the starpower (and lets face it, his stock is WAY up), along with the 3D conversion...

The first film was a fun, "brainless" theater experience, but its become an abomination on repeated viewings; the handling of both Cobra Commander and Baroness in particular were dreadful.

This one looked a bit more serious and more warfare action oriented, but who knows what its truly like.

I still think a more serious and mature take on the concept could work; hell, the last and current comic book series have been pretty solid and developed the concept a lot more; hell, the series that preceded the current one ended with a perfect storyline, called "World War III"; in it, Cobra pretty much triggered a new world war, only to mass up their sleeper cells worldwide to enter the conflict hotzones and caught the warring nations offguard; it even made Cobra Commander scary as fuck; the guy revealed that his plan was essentially to keep humanity in a constant state of war and arms race, since he believed humanity only advances and evolves both in social and technological terms when its at war with itself.

Im not saying GI Joe should be a serious film, but it shouldnt be dumb either, concept has potential.

I find this nothing less than amazing. I've never heard of this happening with a movie that's already spent so much on print and TV, certainly not so close to release.

G.I. Joe, Magic Mike- as long as there's one homoerotic movie starring Channing Tatum opening that day, I think we're good.

A conversion takes about 5-6 months MAX.  A December release would have worked much better. March? That's box office death.

With that sort of delay, it had better be 3DD.

Yes, of course it's all about the "conversion."

 

The "conversion" to a better movie!

FUCK A DUCK!  I was looking forward to this one almost as much as I am Expendables 2.  At least I have this one to look forward to in a lean 2013 movie year.

This is fascinating. It must be unprecendented. There is no way the inflated ticket price would be worth the considerable costs in shifting this around, it must mean essentially doubling up on marketing cost.

Director John Chu explains why he didn't want to go for 3D.

Surely, this is the work of COBRA.

 

 

Just because it's so long a delay?  March has been considered a good month for movies ever since "300" hit big there hasn't it?  There's usually been at least one attempt at an "off season blockbuster" slotted in March every year since.  Sometimes they've even succeeded (Alice in Wonderland, Hunger Games, How To Train Your Dragon).  But at the very least the month is usually good for at least one $100 M+ domestic gross every year.

Apparently Paramount actually said "It worked for TITANIC".

Ummm, WHAT?

If this isn't just about coming up with some 3D digital prints, and they're planning to go back and do reshoots or otherwise change the film, what about the cost of the chemical prints they've probably already had made? They can cost thousands of dollars a piece, and this movie must have been opening on a huge number of screens. Tens of millions of dollars in loses, of that's the case.
 

Edited by Dr Harford - 5/24/12 at 7:53am

Apparently they are shooting new scenes to take advantage of the 3D.

Unless they involve a 3D recreation on Palicki of the Brotherhood Of The Wolf dissolve, they're a waste.

I'm not sure what the level of investment is from them, but could Hasbro be the ones with cold feet? They are the thing that Battleshit and this have in common.

 

Going with no on that one.  Hasbro's investment in Battleship is incredibly slight: http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/battleship Just some branded games (duh), and their lego knock-offs.

 

GI Joe though, is a property Hasbro has been trying (and failing) to relaunch since the mid-90's.  Hasbro killed off the new animated series (never watched, heard ok things) and it's accompanying toyline in anticipation of the movie.  The movie toys are already out in stores, but now they have no movie to get kids to buy 'em.

 

This is probably going to kill the toyline again, and make retailers gunshy on picking it up in the future.

 

So no, I don't think Hasbro was behind this one at all.

 

Armchair toy exectutive-AWAY!  

 

3D is a cover for them essentially re-shooting the fucking movie.  These people really think I can't see it? 

 

I've got eyes like Sauron, bitches!

Some are speculating the move is because of Spider-Man.

 

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

 

Sony execs are probably happy that GI Joe is taking the bad buzz crown from Spidey.

Fuck 3D. I'm so tired of the 3D hype. How did this even become popular again? 

The only reason studios are still doing it is because they can tack 3-6 extra dollars on to the ticket prices. I honestly can't remember the last time I heard a viewer say something positive about 3D, but I guess somebody's still out there paying the extra charge. I'm at the point where I only go 2D, even if I have to see it in a smaller theater. Better a smaller screen that's clear, than a massive one that's blurred, dark and headache inducing.

You don't get access to China if it's not in 3D. 3D is BIG BIG BIG overseas.

 

Avatar.

A late 2012 release wouldn't be the brightest idea either though.  It's just too damn full. 

 

November?  You contend with Bond & Twilight, as well as two more action films (47 Ronin and the Red Dawn remake).

December?  The Hobbit Part 1, the WE FUCKING KILL BIN LADEN!  WOOHOO! movie, and Django Unchained.

 

That said, early 2013 isn't that empty itself....especially in terms of action flicks.  Fucker is being dumped amidst Neil Blomkamp's Elysium, Raimi's Oz film, Stephanie Meyer's The Host, Ender's Game, and the also-banished Jack the Giant Killer.

 

If the inevitable reshoots inspire them, this will be pushed back again to Summer 2013.  If they don't?  It will continue to fester in March.