I know I may be the only person in the world who really liked the GI Joe movie, but with a sequel in the works, it seems Paramount is shifting the focus and may only bring back three of the characters from the first film. That’s a shame, as the movie attempted to start building a mythology and a storyline that would spread out over several movies, but with the film only being a modest success at the box office, Paramount seems to want to move thing in a different (probably cheaper) direction.
The news on the lack of returning characters comes via a tweet from actress Rachel Nichols, who played Shana “Scarlett” O’Hara in the live-action movie of the toy. She said “G.I. Joe 2 News Flash: The only characters to return in the Jon Chu directed sequel will be Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Duke…”
So that means that despite Nichols being one of the most liked aspects of the first film, she won’t be returning for the sequel. Channing Tatum portrayed Duke, Ray Park played Snake Eyes, and Byung-hun Lee was Storm Shadow.
Jon M. Chu was recently hired to direct G.I. Joe 2, from a script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. And with only three returning characters, it does suggest we’ll be getting a smaller, more self-contained movie this time around. However, as the first film was ‘The Rise Of Cobra’, with the members of the organisation absent from the sequel, does that mean Cobra will have risen and then just disappeared?
Oh, and incidentally, Paramount has just set a release date for the movie – it’ll be in cinemas August 10th, 2012.