G.I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon Chu talks to Collider about delay and challenges

by generalsjoes | Jan 23, 2013 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: The Movie

Apparently with the official reveal today of the four minutes of footage set to air before Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the lid has been popped on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and stories are starting to emerge.  First thing I noticed was an interview with Collider where Jon Chu talks about the delay of the film, the rumors about Channing Tatum and more.

The Collider interview can be found right here, but I’d like to touch on some things.  Also, if you remember, Jon Chu’s first public comments about the film delay were made right here on GeneralsJoes and seem to echo much of what he says to Collider.

One of the cooler aspects of this article involves the fact that apparently at least one of the sequences  in the film itself  is a 10 minute “Silent Interlude” homage, which is pretty cool.  The specific comments regarding the silent sequence can be seen below:

“JON M. CHU:  That was definitely an inspiration.  That’s where it all started.  Obviously, ninjas are a big part of the movie, and we thought it would make it really unique from other franchises to have both the military and the ninja side.  So, we wanted to make sure that we did something really different with ninjas that we’d never seen before.  And because they have masks on and they don’t talk anyway, it was just a perfect place.  We could tell story with their fighting.  When you see the whole sequence together, it’s really fun.  In fact, the fight between Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Snake Eyes (Ray Park) has no music.  We had score, a long time ago, and then we just played it once, when I was with the sound effects guys, without the music just to hear the effects, and it was so awesome.  We were like, “We need to have their whole fight without music.”  So, we brought it in and tried it, and knew people would freak out a little bit, but it’s so awesome that you can’t deny that it’s fun to watch them do their thing.”

Pretty neat.  I think the fact that there is a sequence even without music is a really great touch.  Most folks reading GeneralsJoes understand my stance on the whole “Channing Tatum” reshoot angle, too, and it seems like that was mostly confirmed by Chu as well:

“CHU:  Yeah, that was a crazy time!  I didn’t want to answer any of the crazy rumors that were happening, at that time, but the reality was the 3D.  We were told they wanted it turned into 3D, and luckily we had the time to do that.  It just so happens that the March date was a date that they could do it in, and that gave us enough time to focus on it.  We didn’t reshoot anything.  We didn’t go in and [add] Channing.  I’m not going to say what happens to Channing in the movie.  You have to watch the movie.  But, there wasn’t any of all that crazy stuff, so we just ignored it.  It’s funny, when the new trailer came out, everyone was like, “Oh, Channing is in it way more!”  I just didn’t want to say anything, but it was very interesting.  There were rumors that we shot more things, but we literally didn’t shoot anything.  We had done some reshoots a couple days before all that, in January, that were just some pick-up things, but that’s pretty much it.”

But Chu doesn’t just talk about the delay, he brings up many other thoughts, too, speaking about how it felt to bring the HISS Tank to the screen, and many other very cool details.  Check out the full interview on Collider.com.  News is heating up!