Channing Tatum’s death In G.I. JOE: RETALIATION may be the real cause for delay
According to Deadline, turns out the 3D conversion may not have been the primary reason for G.I. JOE: RETALIATION getting pushed back almost a year. They cited that Paramount grew a little concerned when they saw John Carter seemingly fail at the box office, And along with all that;
“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.”
They also note that Channing Tatum’s next film Magic Mike was a bit of concern for Paramount as well. The film of course being about about male strippers and is set to open in June, which in turn would’ve put it up against G.I. Joe. Paramount felt that fans of his character in the first movie, especially the ones who just favored Channing Tatum in general, would rather see him in a g-string than a military uniform.
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.
With all this new information, it really makes people wonder if the “new scenes” that The Rock referenced last week were going to be mainly re-shoots and changes to the script, mainly ones adding JGL back in the movie, and not killing of Channing Tatum’s Duke, and possibly including him further in the movie. Either way, now it seems we may be waiting a while for any actual confirmation.
