I’m going to start sounding like a broken record.  Through this blog and the What’s on Joe Mind podcast, I’ve been pretty adamant that Channing Tatum (and thus Duke) was going to likely have a smaller role in G.I. Joe: Retaliation.  With both Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Bruce Willis making a splash with the film sequel, it seemed like there would be less and less room for another headliner.

That seemed even further confirmed by Tatum’s desire for a full reboot.

Now, he has spoken with the folks at Crave Online, and while he doesn’t come out and reveal anything specifically, he maintains that he was absent for a lot of the New Orleans shooting, and didn’t really interact with folks like Elodie Young, Johnson, or Bruce Willis.  Actually, when asked about Elodie specifically, he says:

“She’s insanely beautiful in her movements, just elegant like I don’t even know. I wish I would’ve stayed to get to watch her fight though, do her scenes. She’s a very good athlete for sure.”

Which confirms my suspicions earlier that he wasn’t even in New Orleans for much of the shooting.  Crave also asked him about transitioning the “lead” to some other big name stars, and his response was that he was “…very, very happy with the arrangement for sure”.

What does that say to me?  Just further confirmation that Channing Tatum is definitely stepping away from the G.I. Joe motion picture franchise, and if the trailer is any indication, the character of Duke may be going with him.  Definitely something to watch.

Thanks to Crave Online and HissTank.com for the heads up.