We hadn’t heard a whole lot of buzz about the supposedly upcoming sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but today, the Hollywood Reporter sheds at least a little bit of light.
They report that indeed, the sequel is moving forward as planned with a script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and that Lee Byung-hun is set to reprise his role as Storm Shadow. None of this is especially interesting…these facts were reported quite a while ago. The interesting part is the following line, directly from Hollywood Reporter:
“Lee will head to the U.S. to begin shooting in June, with the film slated to open in the summer of 2012.”
I don’t believe we’d heard a concrete shooting date of June mentioned before. I know they’d talked about a summer 2012 release, but I honestly thought that was a little ambitious. I still think it’s a little ambitious. Still no director, still no word about Channing Tatum, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Ecclestein, Rachel Nichols, Sienna Miller, Ray Park, or most importantly (in my mind), Joseph Gordon-Leavitt. I think most of these folks signed contracts for a multi-film deal, but given Leavitt’s recent critical and financial success with Inception, it would be interesting to see how he reacts to being thrust back into potential B-Movie cheese.
Looks like the next 18 months are going to be an interesting roller coaster ride as usual. Being a Joe fan is never boring.
Like you’ve already said, again more vague news. Nothing really concrete there. So they plan on starting shooting in June, but without a director or actors…..it’s not gonna happen, so either there is mass secrecy about all this, or they have to move their buts.
On a side note, a 2012 release date would be another blow to those of us who love the original GIJoe. I’ve kind of made my peace with the fact that some just like the movie and others don’t, but to have it encroach on an anniversary year where we would normally get things that celebrate the history of GIJoe, would mean we would lose lots of that to RoC 2 toys. Which really sucks. Here’s hoping for a 2013 release date so everyone gets their moment in the sun.
Oh, and here’s also hoping Tatum doesn’t reprise his role as Duke (and Ripcord dies in the first 2 minutes of the sequel). Those two things would already make me want to see it 😉
Actually, since Joseph Gordon-Leavitt was the only person to lend his voice to the GI Joe RoC game, I would surprised if he didn’t show up. That seems to tell me that he has a bit of a geak side to him that he would want to be in it. But time will tell…
Henry Rollins as Duke. Please?
Considering that they want to go with a more charismatic choice than the really good ones for Duke, I always thought Paul Walker would work well (Fast and the Furious), he’s got that look and arrogance that annoys guys and women just love, BUT he can act (as well as needs be for an action film anyway). From what I hear about how most people feel about Duke even at his best, that seems about right.
Personally, I’m fine with all the Cobra actors returning, they were pretty good. Zartan especially deserves some serious screen time this time around. Don’t really care about any of the Joe ones. I’m a huge Dennis Quaid fan but Hawk didn’t work for me, and while I like Ray Park, it doesn’t really matter who’s in the suit as long as they can fight.
You know if they wanted to, they could call it GIJoe:Renegades, as Zartan takes over and Cobra pretty much owns the USA.
Just a thought.
Wait, they gave the crayons back to the writers?