Problems around 'G.I, Joe 2's' delay

If anyone believed that five weeks before its release, Paramount was pulling G.I. Joe: Retaliation because they felt the need to do “a conscientious 3D job” due to the fact they’ve “seen how it can better box office internationally” is missing the essential aspect that their own early test tracking was showing that movie was ranging from mediocre to bad. And no matter how you spin it, when a movie generally gets pulled from the release schedule, especially one that has had a huge marketing push since the Super Bowl, just five weeks from its release date, everyone knows that the movie needs the dreaded reshoots. 

G.I. Joe 2 is such a film. 

Clearly, Paramount see’s their reported $125 million budgeted film in trouble. Also, $125 million seems unrealistic –I’m wondering what rival studios are saying the actual cost of this film really is, because while Sony says Men in Black III cost $220 million, others are saying it ballooned to more than $300 million. Factor in the all the print advertising, all the trailers–including the $3.5 million spent for the Super Bowl one- for the last 5 months, and you’ve got to figure with reshoots and the upgrade to 3D, this films budget is probably close to $200 million. If not more (on a side note, could Retaliation be the first film to have two Super Bowl ads?)

And the last minute pull means the ancillary products, all the tie-ins (especially the toys) and what not, will now sit in warehouses (if they’ve not already shipped) for the next 9 months, gathering no profit. That’s got be a sting to them.

Nikki Finke, over at Deadline, explains that Paramount realized too late that the film’s biggest problem was not the script per se, but that Channing Tatum was not in it enough (and who would know he was even in it, considering even the one sheet movie poster makes no indication he makes an appearance in the film). Though it seems they realized sometime during production, and brought Tatum back for an additional week.  

Plus, coming off back-to-back hits like The Vow and 21 Jump Street, Tatum’s star has risen (question remain about his male stripper movie Magic Mike that was opening on the same date, as some see this tracking towards a small demographic audience: women and gay men), and Paramount seems now to want to take advantage of it, because it would also seem that their tracking reports indicated that people wanted more Channing Tatum. 

So now G.I. Joe: Retaliation will be retooled. How much the film will be changed story wise to accommodate what was once a small role in the film for Tatum is unknown. What is clear is the movie is going to be a turkey, no matter what. It’s expensive conversion to 3D is designed more for the foreign markets who seemed obsessed with Hollywood films in this format, no matter how dumb the picture actually is (witness Battleship and John Carter, both films that did well overseas, but fizzled domestically).   

Source:Deadline