by generalsjoes | May 31, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Retaliation Toys, G.I. Joe Toys
So, Joe fans got the words they were fearing via online retailers yesterday as reports emerged from all over the ‘net that G.I. Joe: Retaliation orders from Wave 2 and forward would not be fulfilled this year. According to reports from online retailers, the same product will be made available in early 2013.
CRAP.
Now before everyone rushes in and says “Oh, cool, now they can push out some more 30th Anniversary stuff! Oh, cool, now they can fix all the crappy articulation!”
Ummmm… no. I would not expect anything like that. Any toys, even ones where tooling already exists, takes far too long to produce to just be “thrown out there” within the next few months. There is way more planning, coordination, and production required than we probably think. They can’t just toss one of those Kwinn test shots in a magic machine and suddenly have 20,000 available to ship to retailers.
Same goes for articulation. “Fixing” articulation would require significant retooling, and would essentially be creating the line again from scratch. Hasbro has already invested too much money in the current figures, and already has way too short a time frame in order to make any wholesale changes to the figures as they stand.
On the good side, JoeCon is just four short weeks away, so hopefully we can all get our questions answered there. And there will be a LOT of questions, I’m sure.
by generalsjoes | May 30, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: The Movie
We’ve heard it from a number of different sources, and the story is starting to become more and more clear, and now industry insider Nikke Finke has spoken up on Deadline.com about the delay for G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
The story is starting to sound familiar.
Yes, according to Ms. Finke, the reasons behind the G.I. Joe: Retaliation delay were much more than simply a conversion to 3D or “bad screenings”. Sure, those played a part, but there were also other elements at work, too. According to Paramount insiders, the screening response wasn’t so much that the film was bad, it was more centered around the fact that Roadblock and Duke didn’t really establish a great friendship and that Duke died way too early in the film. There were also responses to the screening that asked why there was a lack of 3D in the first place.
Combining this with earlier talk that both John Carter of Mars and Battleship tanked domestically, Paramount became skittish of the surrounding competition, and elected to vacate to safer territory. The interesting note to all of this is not just that both John Carter and Battleship did much better internationally (which they both did), but that the big draw internationally was the 3D in both films.
This is the full context of what the Paramount source had to say:
“This was a case of letting a schedule to fill a summer slot dictate the film not being in 3D even though we knew that would be the most commercial version of the film. Then in the spring there were 2 big events. First John Carter lost $200M despite the best efforts of the Pixar brain trust. But the 3D film managed to gross over $200M overseas, nearly tripling its U.S. take.
“Also Channing Tatum had a breakout spring, starring in The Vow and 21 Jump Street. In our first screening of the film the reaction from audiences was good but with 2 big concerns: 1) They didn’t like the fact that Channing and The Rock really didn’t have any time to develop a friendship before Channing died, and 2) Why wasn’t it going to be in 3D? We went back and shot another week with Channing to develop more of his story with The Rock, which made the film play much better. But we didn’t have the time to be in 3D.
“Then a week ago Battleship basically had the same performance as John Carter – $60M-$70M U.S. and just over $200M international. That was just a wake-up call that said to us we need to offer the best version of the film irrespective of summer market share to ensure the best possible performance. And not being in 3D will cost us a ton of business internationally.”
I think it’s fair to say, now that we’ve heard from a number of industry sources that this is probably the prevailing wisdom behind the news. It’s not nearly the “doom and gloom” that many people fear in regards to the film’s quality, it was mostly a combination of different things that led us to this. Where we go from here is the important next step.
I will say, I haven’t seen this many industry folks talk about the G.I. Joe film franchise in the past, perhaps all of this visible conversation is good for the film in the long run? Maybe it will spark interest from some people and put it more on the “Hollywood Radar”. Along with Deadline.com, the Hollywood Reporter is also chiming in with their own analysis, that puts a bit of a more sinister focus on it, but is still talking about the film. Time will tell.
Check out Deadline.com for the full story.
by generalsjoes | May 29, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: The Movie
We’ve obviously been seeing a lot of talk online about the date move for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but most of it from the mainstream sites has just been a mention, and then moving on. Patrick Goldstein from the LA Times’ “Big Picture” actually put out some very nice and detailed analysis of the move.
So far his opinions are coming pretty close to mirroring mine. In fact, he thinks much the same way I do in that this isn’t just Battleship’s fault, you need to look further back to John Carter of Mars as well, in setting a precedent for failure that major studios are suddenly growing very skittish of.
Check out the post right here. It’s a great read.
by generalsjoes | May 28, 2012 | Dollar Store, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Retaliation Toys, G.I. Joe Toys
I posted a few things on Twitter about this, but I wanted to talk about it a bit on the site here, too, just because I know not everyone follows me on Twitter. Over the past few days I have been reading lots of anger and lots of hype about G.I. Joe: Retaliation toys and the likelihood of a widespread product recall from Hasbro.
To this I just have to say not so fast, my friends.
Let’s just think about this a bit and consider how realistic this scenario really is.
- Product recalls are an extremely expensive proposition and are generally only done in the case of danger or potential safety hazard
- Product recalls are, by and large, reported to the federal government, and end up on Recalls.gov (specifically the CPSC portion of the site), and there is no indication that this has been done as of yet.
- According to many brick & mortar and online retailers, Hasbro sent them communications allowing them to break Street Date last week, prior to the reported date, most likely as a reaction to the movie delay. Why would they then send communications just a few days later telling retailers that they are recalling their product?
- In the same vein, Hasbro issued a press release specifically stating that G.I. Joe is a consumer brand and that items would be available for sale. Why would they then issue widespread product recalls two days later?
- Keep in mind within this two day window, there were also a couple of days of a three day holiday weekend.
- According to several online retailers, including Kokomo Toys, and Adam from Entertainment Earth, Hasbro has issued them no recall orders whatsoever. A Twitter friend of mine named Kenny reports the same lack of a recall notice for Target, and another guy on Twitter, Caped_Crusader has been hitting Targets all morning and finding product on pegs or in stock rooms in every one.
- Many fans report contacting retailers and being told that product was being recalled or was not available for sale. Do not forget, most of these phone calls occurred prior to the previously established street date. If some stores did not receive that communication about street dates, isn’t it possible they were simply referring to the street date as a reason why product could not be sold?
The one outlier in all of this is the reports from Rescuer about Dollar General potentially recalling figures. First of all, I’m sorry, but I simply cannot be convinced based off on one forum message from one person that this is an actual occurrence. Normally I try to maintain benefit of the doubt, but until I hear this from more sources or see more evidence of this, I’m going to chalk this up to miscommunication, especially considering the fact that these are not even movie product.
Granted, I’m not saying this is impossible, I’m just saying the problem is likely being overblown. Perhaps Hasbro is offering an olive branch to certain retaliers? I don’t know, but I’m sorry I’m not taking this all that seriously based on a few scattered forum posts and a random Variety article. Time will tell, but before freaking out, I think we need to at least wait for the street date to come and go and see where things go over the next couple of weeks.
by generalsjoes | May 27, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: The Movie
I’m going to try very hard not to be melodramatic, but I will say over the past few days there has been a lot of thinking, analysis, and a lot of talking out the recently revealed issues with the G.I. Joe: Retaliation film. From a fandom perspective, we were all so geeked out and so fired up about what we saw in the trailers, it was easy for us as a collective group to ignore any potential that the film might not live up to our lofty expectations.
I think we were all so certain this film couldn’t possibly fall below the standard set by G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, when word started coming out that early screenings revealed some potential issues with the film’s quality, combined with the nine month delay and rumors of product recalls, the sudden chaos brought by all of the combined changes has thrown the fandom for a loop. There has been quite a bit of discussion, and yes quite a bit of rage out there, and frankly, it’s hard to say it’s not justified.
But I’ve been doing quite a bit of introspection myself over the past couple of days, and as folks have come to expect from the site, I’d like to offer a rosier outlook than many have been discussing (here on GeneralsJoes certainly included).
Yes, the film is being delayed. Yes, quite a bit of product will not see store shelves in 2012. But, no this is not the end of the world. Read on to read my thoughts.
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