CODENAME: G.I. Joe: Retaliation
CURRENT WHEREABOUTS: Post-production
KEY PERSONNEL: John Chu (Director); Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick (Screenwriters); Channing Tatum, Ray Park, Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, D.J. Cotrona, Adrianne Palicki, Arnold Vosloo, RZA and Ray Stevenson (Cast).
ETA: June 22nd, 2012 (UK); June 29th, 2012 (USA)
Like many kids growing up in the 80s, I was a big fan of the G.I. Joe franchise (or Action Force as it was called here in the UK) and spent countless hours immersing myself in their fight against Cobra through the classic Sunbow-produced G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon, the accompanying Marvel comic book and of course, Hasbro's classic 3¾-inch action figure toy line. Sadly, I never got to see my heroes make it to the big screen during my childhood and it wasn’t until 2003 that the Joes’ jump to live-action finally started to become a reality as producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura began development on a movie adaptation.
By this time I’d grown out of my G.I. Joe obsession (well, mostly) and early talk about the movie employing the ‘buddy’ route of teaming ‘G.I. Joe’ up with ‘Alex Mann’ (a.k.a. Action Man, geddit?) pretty much killed off any interest I had in the project. Although my hopes were renewed somewhat by the release of Transformers in 2007, the subsequent appointment of director Stephen Sommers (whose previous two movies, The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing, should have been enough to bring the curtain down on any filmmaking career) all but confirmed to me that the G.I. Joe movie was going to be a turkey.
Despite receiving a mixed (and by mixed, I mean poor) reception from the majority of moviegoers and critics, I must admit I was taken by surprise by the final film – it wasn’t great by a long shot, but it was better than I’d expected. The biggest problem I had with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was just that – it depicted the rise of Cobra, and that meant origin stories for everyone and everything. Instead of Joes vs. Cobra we got Joes vs. M.A.R.S., and that in my opinion was a big mistake. We didn’t want to see Rex / The Doctor and Christopher Eccleston, we wanted to see Cobra Commander and Destro, and barring the briefest of glimpses at the end, we were left wanting. However, in fairmess The Rise of Cobra did succeed in setting the field for a sequel, and a second installment was all but assured when the film went on to collect $302m at the global box office.Things started off well enough on G.I. Joe 2 when it was revealed in January 2010 that Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick had been hired to tackle the screenplay, then said to be titled G.I. Joe: Cobra Strikes. A year later came even better news – Sommers was out as director, and while his replacement, Jon Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never), may not have been the first name to spring to mind as the ideal replacement, at least he doesn’t have The Mummy Returns on his CV. Still, the news of a reduced budget for the officially titled G.I. Joe: Retaliation was followed by confirmation that big names such as Rachel Nichols, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Christopher Eccleston and Sienna Miller were all out, with only three actors returning to the cast – Channing Tatum (Duke), Ray Park (Snake Eyes) and Lee Byung-hun (Storm Shadow).
Apart from the subsequent announcement that Arnold Vosloo would be back as Zartan, Chu went on to assemble an entirely new cast for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which includes Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a The Rock) as Roadblock, D.J. Cotrona (Dear John) as Flint, RZA (American Gangster) as Blind Master, Elodie Yung (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as Jinx, Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights) as Lady Jaye, Ray Stevenson (Thor) as Firefly, Stephen Martines (General Hospital) as Cross-Country, Eddie Hargitay (The Superagent) as Tunnel Rat and Joseph Mazzello (Jurassic Park) as Mouse. To inject some star power into the relatively unknown supporting cast, Chu also pulled off a surprise acquisition with veteran action star and Hollywood A-lister Bruce Willis, who was confirmed as portraying the original G.I. Joe, General Joseph B. Colton, just as filming was about to commence this past August.
Looking at the new cast, I have to say I’m pleased to see some of my old favourites making the roster, including Flint, Lady Jaye and of course, Firefly, who was without a doubt the coolest action figure of the entire G.I. Joe line. The Rock and Bruce Willis are also solid additions to the cast and should really help to sell the movie to the general public (well, more o than Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Dennis Quaid, anyway), whereas the only real concern seems to be the lack of bad guys… Zartan, Storm Shadow and Firefly? Can that really be it? Well, not exactly, as no sooner had filming begun than a leaked call sheet indicated that Cobra Commander will also return for the sequel, with a new and as-yet-unknown actor presumably taking on the role of the masked menace. I guess the possibly of a new actor stepping into Destro’s silver battle mask wouldn’t be too much of a stretch either, but as yet neither of the characters have been confirmed.Since the G.I. Joe: Retaliation shoot got underway in Louisiana in August, we haven’t heard too much about the film, apart from a few images of Roadblock posted by The Rock on his Twitter account and a behind-the-scenes ‘first look’ from Entertainment Tonight (sadly, the sequel did make headlines last week when crew member Mike Huber was tragically killed in an accident during the dismantling of the sets just days after filming had wrapped). In terms of what we know about the story, Zartan’s new position as President of the United States will play a crucial role in the plot, which apparently involves the world being held to ransom by the threat of nuclear annihilation. As for what else, there's actually very little - Snake Eyes’ pet wolf Timber will make an appearance (yay!) and there’ll also be a jailbreak sequence (Cobra Commander, surely?), while Firefly gets to square off against Roadblock on a couple of occasions. And that's really about it.
With the June 2012 release date fast approaching, we’re yet to receive a poster or trailer and you’d have to expect both to make an appearance before the year is out. Given that The Rise of Cobra left a bad taste in a substantial number of mouths, the first trailer is likely to make or break G.I. Joe: Retaliation and really needs to deliver something if the film is to have any chance of success in a summer packed with action blockbusters such as The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Bourne Legacy, The Dark Knight Rises and The Expendables 2...
Gary Collinson
Holy Franchise, Batman! - Coming 2012.
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