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Wow.  To say this article is eye-opening would be an understatement.  Of course, it’s somewhat misleading as well…  an Associated Press article posted on abc.com focuses on the merchandising behemoth that is Toy Story 3.
But also mentioned in the article were some of the top toy lines distributed from China over the past 18 months, and G.I. Joe Ranked #3.  Toy Story 3 was first, Iron Man 2 came in behind, and G.I. Joe rounded off the top of the list.
This is stunning to me, and is a pretty loud wake-up call to just what the expectations were for G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra.  In my mind, they were exceptionally unrealistic expectations.  As popular as G.I. Joe has been over the past three decades, I think expecting a somewhat rushed film with an incomplete script to sell that many toys at retail was way beyond the scope of what G.I. Joe has been expected to do since the 80’s.
This is part of the reason why I say it’s not that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra sold in terrible numbers, it was more that marketing expectations were so skewed that it was near impossible that The Rise of Cobra would meet those unrealistic goals.
Of course, I do find it quite curious that Transformers appears nowhere on this list…but again, I’m not entirely sure how their distribution works.  Food for thought, at any rate.  Thanks to Jeff Bohn for pointing me towards this article.