G.I. Joe: Retaliation

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January 10, 2013

Exclusive: 
New G.I. Joe Retaliation Cut is NOT 'More Channing Tatum'

By Fred Topel CraveOnline.com
   
Despite reports to the contrary, producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura says Tatum's reshoots lasted only 4-5 hours.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is executive producer of the upcoming ABC drama “Zero Hour,” so he was at the Television Critics Association panel for the show today. We approached him after the panel for an update on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, now a 2013 release after a 3D conversion and reshoots to update the cut that would have premiered in June 2012. Or so we thought. Di Bonaventura, the film's producer, says the new cut is not significantly altered.

“It’s not much different,” Di Bonaventura says. “Literally, we shot for three extra days. We just added sort of explanation in what we did afterwards.”

Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis star in the sequel, which sees Cobra Command taking over the White House. Reports indicated that these reshoots were adding more of Channing Tatum, the star of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, who originally had a smaller role in the sequel. Di Bonaventura flat out refuted that information.

“No, it’s not,” Di Bonaventura says. “That is a complete rumor. I don’t know where that started. Literally, Channing shot for - if I have it wrong, I’m off by an hour - four hours, five hours? So it wasn’t really about that at all.”

Di Bonaventura also produces the Transformers films. With Mark Wahlberg and Jack Reynor joining the cast, we asked what made di Bonaventura comfortable that the Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) story was over. “I think as a filmmaker it’s always fun to continue to explore new ideas, and I think he didn’t really want to do it so that didn’t seem like a fun thing to do.”

We’ll be back with more on G.I. Joe: Retaliation after we know more, because knowing is half the battle. 

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 ... sorry about that 
January 10, 2013
Rumor control – no early premiere for G.I. Joe: Retaliation in the UK after all?
Source: GeneralJoes.com
What appeared to be an official Twitter account announcing film premieres in the UK a few days ago announced that G.I. Joe: Retaliation would be premiering over there in February (well before the March 29th domestic release date in the US)…and understandably, many of us jumped on it (myself included).
Turns out the gun might have been jumped just a bit.
Good friend of GeneralsJoes Dave Tree from All The Cool Stuff reached out to Paramount publicity in the United Kingdom and was told in no uncertain terms “–Definitely no premiere in Feb…“.  In fact the UK Paramount publicity person said that there had been no UK premiere or junket scheduled at all as of yet.  Considering Dave got a chance to see nine minutes of the film last year as part of a press event, I am confident in his sources on this topic.
Stay tuned, Joe fans, looks like this should have been filed under rumor…  mea culpa.  Big thanks to Dave for clearing this up.

[Guest sarahp]

GeneralJoes.com

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January 15, 2013 
G.I. Joe: Retaliation Debuts a Japanese Trailer
Source: Paramount Pictures Japan via ComingSoon.net
Paramount Pictures Japan has released a short but action-packed new trailer for director Jon Chu's G.I Joe: Retaliation, starring D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Check it out in the player below!
In the March 29 release, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick based on Hasbro's G.I. Joe characters.
Published on 10 Jan 2013 by ParamountJapan

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Sarah said: GeneralJoes.com

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January 23, 2013
Lee trained hard for revived role in 'GI Joe' film
Associated Press via News Yahoo.com
Associated Press/Kin Cheung, File - FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2012 file photo, South Korea actor Lee Byung-hun poses for photographers after an interview for his latest film "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" in Hong Kong
HONG KONG (AP) — Lee Byung-hun says he had to train hard to do justice to his character in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."
The upcoming sequel to "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" has his character Storm Shadow rising from the dead, which required the South Korean actor develop a stronger build.
Lee says, "I try to make (my muscles) bigger and look stronger, because he survives death" and wants revenge.
He trained rigorously and followed a strict diet, which he said proved difficult while filming in New Orleans.
"New Orleans has a lot of good food," he explained, and he couldn't visit the city's bars either.
Fans will be able to see the results of his hard work in 3D when "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" opens in March.

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January 23, 2013
'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' 3D Conversion Preview – Was It Worth the Wait? by Amy Nicholson ScreenRant
Watch clip at
http://www.break.com/index/break-exclusive-new-gi-joe-has-amazing-ninjas-2409212
When G.I. Joe: Retaliation officially kicked into gear in January 2011, producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura (Transformers 4) sat down with Paramount to discuss 3D. The technology was considered and rejected.
“Paramount, when they first green-lit it, said to us, ‘We want to shoot in 3D,’” explained Di Bonaventura this week to journalists on the studio’s lot. “We said, ‘We do, too. We can’t mount this movie in 12 weeks and shoot it in 3D—we need more time.’ They said, ‘Well, you don’t have any more time,’ so we said, ‘Okay, we’re going to shoot it in 2D.’” At the time, 3D post-conversions like The Green Hornet were getting terrible buzz from audiences and critics, and with the original G.I. Joe earning terrible reviews (it scored a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes), it made sense that the studio wouldn’t want to invite the bad press that accompanied the rushed 3D conversions of The Last Airbender and Clash of the Titans.
And then in May of 2012—just one month before Retaliation was scheduled to hit theaters, and with toys already on shelves—the studio made the shock announcement that the film would be delyaed to accommodate a 3D conversion. With two months left until Retaliation hits theaters, Paramount hosted a look at their 3D footage to see if the wait (and the concerned publicity that came with the big delay) was worth it.
Ten months is a lot of time to spend in 3D post-production—Clash of the Titans was converted in just ten weeks—but it’s not bizarrely exceptional. Both Thor and Captain America averaged eight months of post-converted 3D work, while The Avengers got by with just four since director Joss Whedon knew the film would be converted from the beginning. However, G.I. Joe director Jon M. Chu (Step Up 2 The Streets) wasn’t as lucky. Retaliation will be his third 3D film after Step Up 3D and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, but it’s also the first he’s shot without actual 3D cameras, or even a 3D game plan from the very beginning.
“It was shocking,” said Chu of the studio’s announced decision to postpone Retaliation for a 3D conversion, “but at the same time, we’d had long conversations with the studio like, ‘If we’re going to do this, we need the time to do it right.’” At least the raw footage itself wasn’t a problem, as Chu claimed he subconsciously shot Retaliation like a 3D film.
“I’ve shot two other 3D movies, so we were always thinking z-axis and how do you do that. It was a part of my brain at that moment,” said Chu. “When we were shooting,we were like, ‘Damn! I wish we were shooting this in 3D! It would have been awesome!” because we knew the set pieces were really big and really dynamic. Obviously you want to see The Rock’s pecs in 3D.”
Instead of screening topless shots of Dwayne Johnson, Di Bonaventura and Chu showed journalists the 3D version of the Himalayan fight between Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes they’d seen being filmed on the set. In the sequence, Snake Eyes ambushes Storm Shadow in a hallway and handily destroys his shooting stars with bullets—a slowed-down trick that looks great in 3D. The fight spills through a window where Jinx helps Snake Eyes stick Storm Shadow into a body bag and lower him off the mountain. But then red ninjas give chase, forcing the two heroes to jump on rappelling lines to swing to freedom, while doubling back to attack the ninjas with swords.
The four minutes of footage we saw were all angles and action. They made it seem almost impossible that the film wasn’t designed for 3D. And just as strikingly: the entire 10-minute sequence that will be seen in theaters is entirely silent—no dialogue, no music, and not even any screams. (“There was actually kind of a ‘Huh!!’ in the middle that we took out, said Di Bonaventura.)
“I remember when we were were shooting it, I was like, ‘Aw, is this going to be really boring? A long hallway?’” said Chu. “But it made you think differently about it, and ultimately when it was in 3D, you’re like ‘This is crazy, it’s perfect.’” To get the physics right during the cliff chase, Chu invited a climbing expert into his office to literally play G.I. Joe, holding figurines and pretending the chairs were mountains.
As for the 3D sequences Chu loves that journalists still haven’t seen, he gushed about getting to build a huge H.I.S.S. tank (“To bring it to life—and not just CG, but physically—was pretty awesome”) and sending it out to do battle with Roadblock’s (Johnson) nimble Ripsaw tank, and while clearly trying to avoid giving anything away, described one more as “a great, crazy scene where Storm Shadow comes back and Cobra Commander arrives and it’s really really fun because it’s all places with water and glass and shards going everywhere.”
The actual work of the conversion is harder than Chu anticipated. “It’s more legwork than I expected,” he said. “To get it right takes not one, three, five, six go-arounds. It takes like 12 to 20—literally—watching these scenes over and over again and just making little adjustments here and there. Which actually feels a little freeing. Even when I shot in 3D, you couldn’t adjust some of the things that we can adjust, some of the edges that you want to clean up.”
Chu and Di Bonaventura, both self-described perfectionists, expect to be fixating on the 3D conversion all the way up until the film opens, and mentioned that even the four minutes we saw might be tweaked and flattened.
“There are scenes that are cut fast and we’re still in that process of finding those things, even in the hallway, they’re going fast and swiping at each other—we’re pushing it right now,” said Chu. “In the final movie, I may compress that so your eyes aren’t jumping around so much and you see a little more clearly. I think that’s something we learned even on the dance stuff: you can do those things, but you’ve got to push it, get all the fun moments, and then go back over it and over it to see where we need to control it a bit more. We’re in that process right now. In our movie, there’s some fast action things that we want to do in it and we don’t want the 3D to restrict those, either. I think the hybrid is a fun thing—we get to play both sides. That just literally takes focus and time.”
At least with Retaliation‘s 10-month delay, Chu’s had all the time he could have asked for.
———
G.I. Joe: Retaliation will be in (3D) theaters on March 29, 2013.

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   Published on 23 Jan 2013 by CBMTrailers·
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pxvW-F2W8ss
Press Release:(copied from HissTank.com)
EXCLUSIVE 3D FOOTAGE OF “G.I. JOE: RETALIATION” TO PLAY IN ADVANCE OF “HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS” IN THEATERS ACROSS THE GLOBE
THE 4-MINUTE PREVIEW WILL BEGIN PLAYING JANUARY 24TH IN IMAX 3D, REALD 3D AND DIGITAL 3D LOCATIONS AROUND THE WORLD
HOLLYWOOD, CA (January 23, 2013) – Paramount Pictures, MGM and Skydance Productions, in association with Hasbro, will release a 4-minute preview of the highly anticipated “G.I. JOE: RETALIATION” in IMAX 3D, RealD 3D and digital 3D theaters in advance of Paramount and MGM’s “HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS.”
This first-look at the film will play across the globe beginning January 24th and run throughout “HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTER’S” theatrical engagement.
Based on the best-selling HASBRO characters, this follow-up to the 2009 release of “G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA,” which grossed more than $300 million worldwide, is di Bonaventura production and is presented by Paramount Pictures, MGM and Skydance Productions, in association with Hasbro.
In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra, they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Elodie Yung, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner of Hasbro, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick, based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe® characters.
“G.I. JOE: RETALIATION” is in theaters everywhere March 29th, 2013.
“HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS” stars Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as Hansel and Gretel, who, after getting a taste for blood as children, become the ultimate vigilantes, hell bent on retribution. Now, unbeknownst to them, Hansel and Gretel have become the hunted, and must face an evil far greater than witches… their past. In addition to Renner and Arterton, the film stars Famke Janssen and Peter Stormare. Written and directed by Tommy Wirkola and produced by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kevin Messick and Beau Flynn.
“HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS” opens in the U.S. and Canada on January 24, 2013 with show times beginning at 10 p.m.

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January 23, 2013
G.I. Joe: Retaliation Set Visit PreviewYou've not lived until you've seen ninjas fight with your own eyes
by Jim Vejvoda IGN
IGN was one of the media outlets lucky enough to visit the set of G.I. Joe: Retaliation way back in October 2011. With the sequel's release now two months away, we can finally share with you a bit of what we saw. Our full set visit will run closer to the film's March 29 opening.
The nature of the facility used for filming outside New Orleans must remain a secret (like Uncle Sam-level secret). A number of scenes for the sequel were shot on these converted soundstages, including a scene that will soon be seen by filmgoers as part of Paramount's pre-release promotional push for G.I. Joe: Retaliation. There will be a four-minute preview of the film attached to worldwide IMAX, RealD and digital 3D showings of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters on January 24. The preview will run throughout the entirety of Hansel & Gretel's theatrical engagement. We were able to screen the preview early followed by brief chats with G.I. Joe 2 director Jon Chu and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. (Look for those interviews in the days ahead.) The four-minute preview is from a protracted ninja battle sequence in the Himalayas, a set-piece that's an homage to the famous "Silent Interlude" issue of the Joe comics. It sees Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) dueling in the mountain lair of the Blind Master (RZA), the ninja who mentored them in their youth. The battle spills out from the monastery onto a cliff side before leading into a full on zip line chase sequence and mountainside battle between Snake Eyes, Jinx (Elodie Yung), and the red-clad villainous ninjas.
"To me, that 'Silent Interlude' is amazing and beautiful and I think the comic book really changed how we saw G.I. Joe," said Chu during a break in filming. "So in a way we want to do that for this generation of kids. I do not know how much kids today know about GI Joe, probably not as much as I did growing up. To reestablish that and to show this isn’t just a fluffy movie, but that it actually has some meat to it. Even though there are crazy ninjas flying off things there is a cool sort of darkness to that which is also fun."
We saw part of this fight sequence shot during our day on set. During a pause in filming, Park said he and Lee "wanted to make (their fights) real. Like it's two brothers fighting, there's a lot of aggression. Instead of flashy-flashy and doing flips in the air, we wanted to tell the story throughout the fight as well. There's a lot of good moves, a lot of great choreography that we worked on." Lee said that he and Park are "both much more comfortable [with each other] now. We know each [other] and how we move. His specialty and my specialty. In this movie, he has a lot of fights. Of course, we've trained a lot together, but we need to train separately, also. We have other fights."
Yung told us that she "did all the swordplay and fights. I was really nervous. I trained about a month before we began because I had never done swords before. I did a bit of karate -- I’m a black belt -- so I know how to move. But when I arrived there I realized I hadn’t used the swords, and it’s really difficult."
For his part, Park couldn't wait to slip back into costume as arguably the most famous Joe of them all. "I have the signature guns on my side. I'm the man with the toys. I love it. I love playing Snake Eyes. It's a great challenge and I love doing it. I've been training since the release of the first movie, back in '09. I was just like, 'Right. Ok, they're gonna start the sequel to this pretty soon.' So the last two years all I've been doing is Snake Eyes. ... When I see pictures of myself as Snake, I become an even bigger fanboy of myself as Snake. I really like it. I feel lucky to be playing the part in this movie."
We saw a couple of other scenes being shot, including an exterior chase and fight scene between Dwayne Johnson's Roadblock and Ray Stevenson's Firefly. (And we even got to handle some of the weapons, include Roadblock's signature .50 caliber machine gun.) D.J. Cotrona, who plays Flint in the movie, was also on set that day. "The Flint character we have in this film is similar to the classic Flint personality-wise," said Cotrona. "I think the way the movie goes, it kind of gives you an intro to this guy. Kind of how he got into this unit and how he turns into the Flint that we've seen a lot more of in most of the other G.I. Joe stuff."
"The great thing about this is that, while it's all G.I. Joe, we have two really great stories underneath. You have the strong, hardcore military stuff with all the things you want to see and much more and then Snake Eyes' journey is kind of separate in the beginning. It goes much further into his individual journey and everything you would want to see there," said Cotrona. "But they do come together in a really cool way in the second part of the film towards the end. They all kind of merge together. It's really cool You almost get three movies. You get the hardcore military G.I. Joe thing. You get a really amazing Snake Eyes action-based ninja acrobatic amazing fight thing and then they come together. Everybody mixes it up together."
G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens March 29.

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January 23, 2013
New Details and Footage From G.I. Joe: Retaliation!
Source: Silas Lesnick ComingSoon.net
Back in October of 2011, ComingSoon.net had the opportunity to visit the Louisiana-based production of G.I. Joe: Retaliation and, in the very near future, we'll be bringing you interviews with stars Dwayne Johnson, D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Ray Park, Elodie Yung and Ray Stevenson along with detailed accounts of some of the impressive sets designed for the March 29 release. In advance of that, we've caught up with director Jon M. Chu and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to discuss the big reason for the film's move from 2012 to 2013: 3D.
Having had nearly a full year to post-convert the action adventure, both filmmakers are decidedly proud of the results and have made plans to preview four minutes of 3D footage before screenings of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, opening January 25. Today, Break.com has a preview of that footage and, while you'll need to go to a theater to catch the stereoscopic version, you can see for yourself how Chu's use of color and depth lend themselves to the post-conversion process by checking out the video at the bottom of the page.
"That was a crazy time," Chu laughs of the delay. "I didn't want to answer any of the crazy rumors that were happening. The reality was the 3D… "
Among the theories formed about the delay was the rumor that new footage was being shot to include additional scenes for returning actor Channing Tatum.
"We didn't go and reshoot anything," Chu continues. "I'm not going to say what happens to Channing in the movie, but there wasn't any of that crazy stuff. We just ignored it. It was funny, though, when that new trailer came out. Everyone was like, 'Oh! He's in it way more!'"
Although Tatum's appearance as Duke helps connect G.I. Joe: Retaliation to 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, di Bonaventura stresses that this new film takes on a very different tone.
"I really wanted to make the second film more grounded to get a greater sense of grit," he explains. "The action pictures I've been involved in are ones where, when a guy gets punched, you really feel the punch and when somebody gets shot, you really feel the shot. When Jon came in, that was one of the things he said to me that made me go, 'Okay. We're really going to do this picture together.'"
The four-minute preview, which shows off a portion of one of two major fights between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, plays out in the film for a full ten minutes without any dialogue whatsoever, homaging Larry Hama's classic "Silent Interlude" storyline from the Marvel Comics series.
"That was where it all sort of started," says Chu. "Obviously, ninjas are a really big part of the movie and we thought that that would make it unique from other franchises to have both the military and the ninja side. We wanted to make sure we were doing something really, really different with ninjas that we had never done before. Because they have masks on and they don't talk anyway, it was the perfect sort of place. You could tell a story with their fighting."
"One of the biggest complaints about the first movie was that there wasn't enough ninjas," adds di Bonaventura. "That's one of the reasons one of the major storylines in this one is only about ninjas."
Not only does the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow fight play out without any dialogue, it doesn't have a musical score either.
"Here, we have a little just to connect it to the other piece that we're cutting," says Chu, "…we had score, a long time ago. Then we just played it once when I was with the sound effects guys without the music just to hear the effects. It was so awesome we were like, 'We need to have their whole fight without music!' We brought it in and tried it and knew people would freak out a little bit, but it was so awesome we just had to do it."
As much as the sequel plays tribute to the "G.I. Joe" 1980s cartoon and comic book series, di Bonaventura felt it was important to take the franchise back to its earliest roots.
"People who grew up with the original Joe were a little bit like, 'What world did I enter here?'" he says of reactions to the first film among older moviegoers. "In this, Bruce Willis plays Joe Colton, who is the original Joe. Anybody who grew up with that is given a sort of bellwether in the movie. Bruce dresses and acts like and speaks like the guy I grew up with." 
"If he didn't want to play Joe," adds Chu, "we probably wouldn't have had Joe in the movie. It was only because we said it would be our dream as 'G.I. Joe' fans to have the guy who represents it be the guy who represents all action movies of our generation."
Despite the film's delay, Chu is confident that fans will find the 3D worth the wait.
"We have a whole tank battle with HISS tanks and a little Ripsaw tank that the Rock drives around in," he smiles. "It's really cool in 3D… This is just a fun ride. You go and you get to experience this sort of mash-up of all these genres. In a way, 'G.I. Joe' was mash-up before mash-up ever existed."

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January 23, 2013
'G.I. Joe: Retaliation': 4 minutes to screen with 'Hansel & Gretel'
By Noelene Clark HeroComplex The LA Times
Byung-Hun Lee plays Storm Shadow in "G.I.Joe: Retaliation." (Jaimie Trueblood / Paramount Pictures)
The G.I. Joes will once again face off against terrorist organization Cobra in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” March 29, but fans can get their first glimpse of the film this weekend in a four-minute preview set to screen before certain showings of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.”
The first look debuts Thursday and will play before “Hansel & Gretel” showings in IMAX 3D, RealD 3D and digital 3D theaters.
“Retaliation” — the second installment in the “G.I. Joe” film franchise — was originally slated to be released last summer, but five weeks before it was to arrive in theaters, the studio announced it would be delayed, reportedly to allow time for conversion into 3-D. The decision was a surprise, even to the film’s director, Jon M. Chu, but Paramount Pictures hopes the sequel will be a success, partly because it cost $125 million to produce — about $50 million less than 2009′s “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” which grossed $300 million worldwide — and partly because it adds big-budget action stars Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis to the cast.
Johnson plays Roadblock, a heavy machine gunner in the Hasbro action figure line and Marvel comics on which the films are based, and Willis plays Joe Colton — the series’ namesake. “Retaliation” aims to bridge the gap between fans of the 1960s toy line, in which G.I. Joe was an individual soldier, and the 1980s comics and animated series, in which the G.I. Joes were a team.
“I was someone who grew up with the action figures, so when I saw the animated series I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ That wasn’t the Joe in my imagination,” the film’s producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told Hero Complex last year. “In this movie putting a face on who Joe is — in Bruce Willis — and that idea of having the original Joe is great for the audience that doesn’t know the Joe of the 1980s but knows the Joe of the 1960s and 1970s. There’s a combination of these things coming together in a really great way.”
The film also stars Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, RZA, Ray Park, Ray Stevenson, Walton Goggins, Joseph Mazzello, Byung-hun Lee, Elodie Yung, Arnold Vosloo and Jonathan Pryce. Click through the gallery above for a look at some of their roles.
Meanwhile, Paramount’s “Hansel & Gretel” — in which the children from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale grow up and become revenge-hungry, witch-hunting vigilantes — officially opens Friday, with select late-night showings Thursday.
That film stars Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as the title characters, as well as Famke Janssen and Peter Stormare.

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Some spoilers from the trailer 
January 25, 2013
Four-Minute G.I. Joe: Retaliation IMAX 3D Preview Footage First Impressions
Jon Hueber TheHDRoom
Beginning this weekend, in select IMAX 3D theaters, prints of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters will include a special four-minute preview presentation of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. During the press screening of Hansel and Gretel, I was able to see the new footage inspired by the famous "Silent Interlude" in issue #21 of the original Joe comic and I really liked what I saw. If you plan to see Hansel and Gretel this weekend, and would like to be surprised, I suggest you stop reading now.
Still here? Good. Here we go.
Dwayne Johnson, who plays Roadblock in the new film, introduces the footage and it opens focusing primarily on Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, as it should.
In a mountain retreat, a nearly naked Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun, reprising his role from 2009's G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra) is getting dressed and strapping on his katanas, throwing stars, Sais, and other neat tools of ninja destruction. Once fully dressed and ready to go, Storm Shadow steps into a hallway, where Snake Eyes (Ray Park, also reprising his role), his longtime Arashikage clan brother under the tutelage of the Hard Master, is waiting for him. And as happens when these two get together, a fight erupts.
Snake Eyes is armed with an UZI sub-machine gun and Storm Shadow counters with throwing stars. The 3D really pops here, and director Jon Chu effectively uses slow motion to really show these two ninja masters at the top of their game.
Once the initial stand off is resolved, the fight evolves into a combination of hand-to-hand martial arts and swordplay. The fight is well choreographed and it is easy to make out what is happening. It spills out of the hallway as both men crash through a window and land outside in the snow.
More hand-to-hand ensues before Storm Shadow seemingly gets the upper hand. But, before he can kill Snake Eyes, another ninja appears and uses a taser-like weapon to knock out the white-clad warrior. This new ninja is dressed in Kamakura, a long time G.I. Joe member's (and Arashikage clansman) colors, but it is evident that it is a young woman, which leads me to believe that it is Jinx (Elodie Yung). Jinx and Snake Eyes quickly wrap Storm Shadow in a body bag for transport just as a small army of red-clad ninjas appear. Snake Eyes throws the bag containing Storm Shadow over the side of a bridge, and as the red ninja swarm, he and Jinx jump over as well.

Seems that it's Storm Shadow in the bag, he's kidnapped (rescued?) by Snake Eyes & JInx

What follows here is a crazy chase scene filmed literally above, and on the side, of a mountain. Snake Eyes and Jinx, along with the bagged Storm Shadow, fly through the air on ziplines and run across sheer rock face using rappel lines, and the red ninjas follow attacking when they can with katanas. This is footage that has been previously seen in most of Retaliation's trailers. The action is fast and exciting and well filmed. The 3D is outstanding in this part of the footage, and really makes a case for G.I. Joe: Retaliation to be viewed in 3D. This is important as Chu did not film the movie in native 3D and the effects were added in post-production, which delayed the release almost a full calendar year. In fact, all of the 3D throughout worked for me to enhance, and not carry, what I was seeing, which is important to me. Good 3D should blend into the background after a few minutes and while the footage was only a few minutes long, I felt that it will do that once the full film is released in March.
Just as the footage seems to ramp up to some conclusion, it ends and a new trailer for the full film is revealed which plays a little Joe Colton (Bruce Willis) heavy.
As with most of the extended 3D IMAX footage runs, this taste truly leaves you wanting more. I was decidedly on the fence about Retaliation, for a variety of reasons (the first film was terrible after the first forty-five minutes, Chu is not a proven big budget action director, the screenwriters' last project was Zombieland - not really military/anti-terrorism stuff), but after these four minutes, I can say that I am on board, and I am on board for the 3D presentation.
Again, this footage is available at select 3D IMAX theaters and is attached to Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. G.I. Joe: Retaliation hits theaters on March 29.

[rubie]

January 23, 2013
Director Jon M. Chu Talks G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, the Film’s 10-Minute Silent Sequence, Why the Release Date Was Delayed, Extra Channing Tatum, 3D, & More
by Christina Radish  Collider.com
A four-minute preview of the highly anticipated G.I. Joe: Retaliation will be shown in IMAX, RealD and digital 3D theaters with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, beginning on January 24th.  To debut the footage from the sequel and give a glimpse of what audiences can expect from the 3D conversion, Paramount invited a handful of online press, including Collider, over to the studio lot.
Following the footage, we participated in a roundtable interview with director Jon M. Chu, who talked about the 10-minute homage to “Silent Interlude” (of which the preview shows an abbreviated version), how much of the film was shot on stage versus location work, his favorite theory about the film’s delayed release date (from last summer to March 29th), that no reshoots were done as a result and no extra footage of Channing Tatum was shot, what he thinks the 3D adds to the film, maintaining ties to the first movie while doing his own thing with this one, how the conversion turned out to be a lot more legwork than he expected, what he was most excited about bringing to the film from the G.I. Joe mythology, and how daunting it is to take on this franchise.  Hit the jump for what he had to say, as well as my thoughts on the footage.
As someone who, more often than not, doesn’t understand what 3D does to enhance the film-going experience, I have to admit that I am always skeptical when something is presented to me in that format, especially when it’s converted quickly without much thought given to anything other than extra money at the box office.  However, in the case of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, it is obviously apparent that the release date delay was so that the proper care and time could be devoted to doing the conversion properly, and what has resulted is a depth that adds to the thrill-ride and a vibrancy of color that has me excited to see more.
What we were shown was an abbreviated four-minute version of a larger 10-minute silent fight sequence in the Himalayas, between Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Snake Eyes (Ray Park), that was not only really cool (with ninjas, throwing stars, sword fighting, gun play and zip lines), but also easily illustrated how the filmmakers plan to enhance the experience for audiences.  And the small glimpse of the banter from both Bruce Willis and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson showed that, while this film is definitely grittier than the first one, it also isn’t taking itself too seriously.
Question:  Is the 10-minute silent scene your homage to “Silent Interlude”?
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. 
How much of this was shot on stage versus location work?
CHU:  It was multiple levels of shooting, spread out through many months.  We shot real stuff in Whistler, of all places, up in the mountains there, camping out in the snow.  We had a crew up there, setting up the zip lines.  They were real zip lines.  That was very early in the process ‘cause we knew it was going to take a long time.  Even the suits that we were designing for Snake Eyes had to be able to fit that environment.  They had to go plan the mountain stuff, and it was a very hard thing of, how moveable can he be in it?  Can he breathe at that altitude, with that mask on?  It was really hard for him to breathe, so we had to figure that out.  And she’s not in a thick outfit, but it’s freezing cold up there, so we had to find ways to keep her heated.  If there was a snow storm, you had to camp out there.  I think the set up crew had to camp out there a couple of times because the only way in and out was this helicopter and, if the weather wasn’t good, you just stayed.  So, that was one whole piece.  The other piece were the close-ups and some of the swinging stuff that we could do on a huge giant green screen.  They were really swinging.  We had guys with these swords who were running into each other.  Trying to keep that coordinated was a whole task, in itself.  And then, our editors had to piece that together.  We had to figure out where the rocks were and where it all would happen. 
After the delay of the film was announced, there were quite a few theories about why.  Do you have a favorite theory?
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.
Is there a particular scene that you think the 3D really shines with?
CHU:  I think the [Himalayas scene] is really fun.  We have a whole tank battle with these H.I.S.S. tanks, and a Rip Saw tank that Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) drives around.  That’s really cool in 3D.  We have a great crazy prison escape, that I don’t know if I should call a prison escape.  We have a great scene where Storm Shadow comes back and Cobra Commander arrives.  That’s really fun in 3D ‘cause it’s all places with water and glass, and shards going everything.  Ultimately, this is a spectacle movie.  It’s a really fun movie to experience, and the 3D only helps.  If we were this big dramatic, dark movie, I’m not sure it would be worth that wait, but it only lifted our biggest strengths.   
How did you approach maintaining ties to the first movie while doing your own thing?
CHU:  We’re in that same world, in terms of being a continuation of that story.  But, what’s great about G.I. Joe as a brand, over the years, everybody reinvents it in a different way.  The cartoon brought its own interpretation.  So, I had a lot of freedom to create the tone of this world, which was really nice.  I’m amazed how many people saw the last movie.  Everywhere we go, people know it because it plays on TV a lot and so many people saw it in the theater.  This is definitely a continuation.  The President, at the end of that movie, is not who he says he is, and we take it from there and move on.  Obviously, Duke (Channing Tatum) is in our movie, and we refer to some of those other characters, but we don’t hang onto all those things.  We leave a lot of things open-ended, so that we’re exploring this part of the world, but maybe this part of the world can keep going in a different other way.  You can jump to different parts of the G.I. Joe universe, if you wanted to.  That was really important.  One of my biggest challenges was to fit those things together.  But ultimately, it’s because of G.I. Joe that the history of G.I. Joe fit well.  We have this great opening prologue that helps paint a little bit of how the world is and where we are in that. 
Because the villains in the G.I. Joe world are so bright and colorful, were you ever worried about getting people to root for the good guys, over the villains?
CHU:  Yes and no.  You have Dwayne and Bruce, and you’re going to root for them, no matter what.  They can even be a little more bad-richard simmons than normal, and you’re good with them.  Of course, the bad guys in our movie are really kick-richard simmons.  They go for it.  Harder than that is just that the humor of the movie is very real-world, but at the same time, we’re trying not to take ourselves too seriously.  Everything does have a little wink and a nod to what the spirit of G.I. Joe has always been, to me, at least.  It is a crazy, weird world, even though you’re supposed to believe it co-exists with us, maybe six years in the future.  More difficult for me was when do we not take ourselves too seriously and when do we actually have to play the real danger of it.
In doing the 3D conversion process, were there specific scenes that turned out to be more challenging or that you had to make the most adjustments for, or did the whole thing turn out smoother than you expected it to be?
CHU:  It is more legwork than I expected.  To get it right takes not one, three, five or six go-arounds.  It takes 12 to 20 go-arounds, literally watching the scenes, over and over again, and just making little adjustments, here and there.  That feels more freeing than even when we shoot in 3D because you can’t adjust some of the things that we can adjust, like some of the edges we want to clean up.  There are scenes that are cut fast.  We actually are still in that process of finding those things.  That’s something we learned on the dance stuff, that you can do those things.  We’ve got to push it and get all the fun moments and keep going back, over and over, to see where we need to control it a bit more.  So, we’re in that process, right now.  There are some fast moments in this movie.  There are some fast action things that we want to do in it, and we don’t want the 3D to restrict those either.  The hybrid is a fun thing.  We get to play both sides.  That just takes focus and time.
Being a big fan of G.I. Joe, was there something you most loved bringing to the big screen?
CHU:  The H.I.S.S. tank was a dream.  I guess it was written in the script originally, but to actually build the thing [was cool].  The last movie felt like, “Oh, there’s a lot of CG stuff, so we’ll just build on green.”  But going in, I was like, “We’ve gotta build this stuff,” not really knowing if they were going to spend the money or if we could actually build a life-size H.I.S.S. tank that goes up and down, moves and rolls around.  There was some resistance, of course.  They were like, “You can’t do that!  It’s going to take months and months to even design and build, and then it’s not going to be able to move.”  But, we got it!  So, the H.I.S.S. tank, in itself, was pretty awesome.  Firefly’s (Ray Stevenson) motorcycle is really cool.  We went through a ton of different versions of that.  And the masks were my biggest surprise, with how intricate and difficult it was to get a good looking mask for these guys, like with Cobra Commander and Snake Eyes.  Even just helmets can go way wrong, really quickly.  I wanted to nod to the stuff that I knew, as a kid.  I didn’t want to say, “This is a brand new Snake Eyes,” that was not the Snake Eyes that you know.  I wanted the Snake Eyes that I played with.  So, we got to play around with that.  We went crazy.  We did over 60 designs of Snake Eyes, and probably over 100 of just what his visor would be like.  Those are tough.  With the tint, do you go more amber or do you go more black?  And then, you are dealing with the history of what it is, and you still want to give something fresh.  So, those choices were made, piece by piece.  The details for Cobra, just with what those gears would be and what he was actually doing.  Is he breathing through it?  Are we ever going to see his eyes?  Is he just moving around like that?  But, when you have people like Ray Park play Snake Eyes, it really is different.  We had stunt doubles go in for a certain moment, here and there, and you can tell that there’s no acting there.  Whereas with Ray, you know the personality.  He has a humor about him.  It’s a very strange thing that he does with Snake Eyes, but he’s funny when he’s in there.  When Rock talks to him and they communicate in silence, it’s a fun thing.  They actually have that communication, which is funny.
The first G.I. Joe didn’t get the greatest reviews, so were you at all hesitant about taking over the reins of the franchise?
CHU:  No, I wasn’t hesitant.  I jumped at the chance, obviously.  It was an amazing opportunity to make a movie of characters that I know and love, even if I wasn’t the biggest comic book guy who knew every issue of everything G.I. Joe.  It was the cartoon that I really was a part of.  And I loved the first movie.  I had a lot of fun with it, but it wasn’t necessarily my G.I. Joe experience.  I remember when it was coming out, I was like, “It’s gotta do this, this, this, this, this, this and this.”  And then, I saw the movie and was like, “Oh, that was a little bit different, but it was still enjoyable and fun.”  So, when they offered me the movie, I knew I could go back to that list.  It’s hard because you get lost along the way sometimes, and things change and characters shift, but I always tried to remind myself of the things that I always wanted in a G.I. Joe movie.  You want the ninjas right up against the military guys.  You want that humor.  You want that comradery.  You want to know that each one is different.  They’re not just a group fighting one thing.  They all have personality.  Even if it doesn’t really make sense, you want it to be fun and just go for it.  If you think about all those things, I don’t know if this movie is necessarily for you.  This is just a fun ride.  You get to experience this mash-up of all these genres.  In a way, G.I. Joe was mash-up before mash-up ever existed.  Everybody has their own sound, which was really fun to do. 
How daunting is it to take on the G.I. Joe franchise?
CHU:  Just in taking something that I grew up with and having the opportunity [to do my take on it], it’s scary.  You know everyone is watching, including every person that you’ve ever talked to Joe about.  My friends and I would collect the toys and go to the different conventions.  I would call my friends a lot of the time and be like, “Do you think this is weird?  Is it jacked up, if we do this, or do you think it’s okay?”  It’s a daunting task.  I can’t rely on those immediate feelings for certain things because it would throw my process off.  I just have to trust that the reason I love the property is probably the reason it was working, at the time.  Having Bruce [Willis] be the original Joe was really trippy.  You want him to be the original Joe, in every way.  If he didn’t want to do this movie, we probably wouldn’t have Joe in the movie.  It was only because we said, “This would be our dream, as a G.I. Joe fan, to have the guy who represents it be the guy who represents all action movies of our generation, growing up.”  It just worked right.  And we have him next to the next generation’s action guy.  There’s not a lot of action heroes anymore, and the guy who’s picking up all of that is The Rock.  And that’s a theme in our movie.  At some point, you don’t have your laser guns and your spaceships and your hovercrafts, and all that stuff.  It’s just about the soldier or the ninja, or the person who’s fighting the uphill battle, and it’s about what’s inside.  Bruce comes into this movie, as the original Joe, saying, “We didn’t have any of that stuff.  You don’t need all that stuff.  We’ll go old school, in that way.”  That was fun, and it helped frame our visual look and style of our storytelling.
Were there things that you wanted to do, but ended up deciding against doing in the film, or did you get some version of everything on your dream list into the movie?
CHU:  Yes, for sure.  I wanted to do a lot more nods than we probably have in the movie, but some of them were just so random that it didn’t fit.  It just confused people.  We still have to deal with, not only people understanding where the first movie came from, but people who have never seen it before and have no idea who G.I. Joe is.  When you see Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, we have people who don’t know who’s bad and who’s good, and you’re like, “Don’t you know?!  It’s the ultimate rivalry!”  And they’re like, “No.  Usually, the guy in white is the good guy and the guy in black is the bad guy.”  And I’m like, “No, it’s the exact opposite, guys!”  It’s hard because then we have to explain what happened with them, which they also did in the last movie.  It’s a trade-off.  If I wanted to add a little extra thing about Snake Eyes that I definitely wanted, we could put little seeds of it, but we really couldn’t go crazy into it.  I think we get it established and set, and if the audience wants to see more, we’ll give them more.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens in theaters on March 29th.  

[rubie]

January 23, 2013
Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura Talks G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, the Release Date Delay, Ninjas, Balancing Humor and Drama, What 3D Adds, and More
by Christina Radish Collider.com
A four-minute preview of the highly anticipated G.I. Joe: Retaliation will be shown in IMAX, RealD and digital 3D theaters with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, beginning on January 24th.  To debut the footage from the sequel and give a glimpse of what audiences can expect from the 3D conversion, Paramount invited a handful of online press, including Collider, over to the studio lot.
Following the footage, we participated in a roundtable interview with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura who talked about what it’s like to be involved with franchises like G.I. Joe and Transformers that fans are so passionate about, his initial reaction to the news of the delayed release date, why they decided to focus more heavily on the ninjas this time, finding the balance between humor and drama, how he judges whether or not they’ve pushed an established franchise too far, what he feels the 3D adds to the film, why it’s important for the director of a film to love the genre they’re working in, and what his tenure at Warner Bros. taught him about handling a franchise, as a producer.  Hit the jump for what he had to say, as well as my thoughts on the footage.
As someone who, more often than not, doesn’t understand what 3D does to enhance the film-going experience, I have to admit that I am always skeptical when something is presented to me in that format, especially when it’s converted quickly without much thought given to anything other than extra money at the box office.  However, in the case of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, it is obviously apparent that the release date delay was so that the proper care and time could be devoted to doing the conversion properly, and what has resulted is a depth that adds to the thrill-ride and a vibrancy of color that has me excited to see more.
What we were shown was an abbreviated four-minute version of a larger 10-minute silent fight sequence in the Himalayas, between Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Snake Eyes (Ray Park), that was not only really cool (with ninjas, throwing stars, sword fighting, gun play and zip lines), but also easily illustrated how the filmmakers plan to enhance the experience for audiences.  And the small glimpse of the banter from both Bruce Willis and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson showed that, while this film is definitely grittier than the first one, it also isn’t taking itself too seriously.
Question: What’s it like to be a part of big franchise films like this?
LORENZO DI BONAVENTURA:  I had a really funny thing happen to me that’s really indicative of how crazy in love people are with these kinds of things.  I actually had a heart issue in London, just before the holiday.  It turned out fine, but I was on an operating table and they were giving me an angiogram, and the technician started talking to me.  He said, “I am the biggest Transformers fan!  Are you the producer of Transformers?”  I was like, “What are you talking about?!”  It went on for awhile, and it was kind of absurd.  At one moment, he stopped and said, “Do you want me to stop talking?,” and I said, “No.  It’s the first time I haven’t thought about dying in the last few hours.  Keep talking.”  He took his pants down and he was wearing Bumblebee underwear.  That kind of passion that it actually does create for people is awesome. 
As a guy who’s been on both sides, having run Warner Bros. for awhile and now being a producer, what was your reaction when you found out about the release date shift? 
DI BONAVENTURA:  There were a ton of stories that were completely inaccurate, that we shot all this new footage for Channing [Tatum], and all that stuff.  We never shot another frame.  I’ve been asked about that, over the last few months, I don’t know how many times.  My experience is that you can’t possibly win against whatever the tidal wave is that’s coming at you.  One of the reasons I wanted to show the first round of footage was to go, “Look, guys, this is what we’re doing,” so you can decide for yourselves about the quality of it and the attitude of it, and you can hear from us about what we’ve been doing.  The only way it will get out there is if enough of you all start saying, “Wait a second, they didn’t have new re-shoots or all this stuff.”
But there will be some people who are sad there’s not more Channing Tatum.
DI BONAVENTURA:  Yeah, there will be, for sure.  But, there will be some people that are really happy that Bruce Willis and The Rock have plenty of time.  It’s hard when you have three guys, all of which you want to see be the lead. 
Are you deliberately emphasizing the fact that this is a very different film from the first one?
DI BONAVENTURA:  I don’t know if deliberate is the right word, but I think it is a consequence of what it became, in a way.  I really wanted to make the second film more grounded and give a greater sense of grit.  The action pictures I’ve been typically involved with, when somebody gets punched, you really feel the punching, and when somebody gets shot, you really feel the shot.  When Jon [Chu] came in, that was one of the things he said to me that made me go, “Okay, I can see why we’re going to do this picture together.”  That’s what I wanted to see in the second movie.  By casting Bruce and The Rock, they’re both, by definition, grounded characters with who they are, so I think the movie does have a different sensibility.
Why did you decide to focus so heavily on ninjas, this time?
DI BONAVENTURA: One of the big complaints about the first movie was that there were not enough ninjas.  That’s one of the reasons why there’s a major storyline that goes on, that’s only about ninjas.  It’s really fun.  It’s a great sense of fantasy, when you go into that world.  
Is the 10-minute silent scene your homage to “Silent Interlude”?
DI BONAVENTURA:  That was our whole motivation.  There was actually a sound in the middle of it, which we took out.  It’s really fun!  I think the comic book fan who grew up with that is going to love the homage to that, and the fan that has no idea about that will find it a cool sequence.
Where do you lie, between the comic book fan, the cartoon and the action figures?
DI BONAVENTURA:  I’m an original Joe guy.  I’m too old, unfortunately.  Another complaint we had after the first movie was that the people who grew up with the original Joe felt a little bit like, “What world did I enter, here?”  Bruce Willis plays Joe Colton, who is the original Joe.  So, anybody who grew up with that, now has a bellwether in the movie.  Bruce dresses, acts like and says things that sound like the guy that I grew up with, but he’s now existing within a larger mythology that the comic books brought to life.  In a way, The Rock does a little bit of the grounding too, in the sense that, if you can imagine the ideal soldier, you think of him.  He’s a little bit like the guy I grew up with, but he’s a character of this mythology.  One of the things we were trying to do with the movie was to bridge those two things.  Bruce Willis and I traded stories about what awful things we did to our G.I. Joe, growing up.  So, for those guys, like me, who grew up with that, now we have a character that anchors the movie. 
How did you find the balance between the humor and the drama?
DI BONAVENTURA:  Somebody I know once said, “Funny is money.”  When these big action pictures don’t have a sense of humor, they’re just too dry and they take themselves way too seriously.  I guess, every once in awhile, there are certain ones where that works.  But for me, I think the audience is coming to this kind of picture to have fun.  They want to be wowed, they want to laugh, and they want to relate to the characters.  Bruce and The Rock have great comedic timing.  There’s some very organic simple humor that goes on within the picture that the writers scripted, and there was some that the writers didn’t script, that happened just because of who they are.  And Bruce is always a guy who comes up with great one-liners, for himself and for other characters.  It’s really interesting.  So, I’m always trying to pick his brain for some ideas ‘cause he’s always got a couple of great ones.  There’s a fair amount of humor in the picture.  It’s that fine line where you want to take yourself seriously, but not too seriously.  If you take yourself too seriously, then it gets a little brittle.  The ninjas are flying around, so you can’t be serious.  But, if you take yourself not seriously enough, it loses its gravity.  What I keep searching for in movies, more and more, is the right gravity.  When you don’t take it seriously enough, then why is the audience supposed to invest in the drama?  If a character dies, you should feel that.  If a character accomplishes something, you should feel that.  That’s where you try to find that balance.  It’s impossible to articulate, as you go through it.  You just have to recognize it.
You’ve worked on a couple of big Hasbro franchises and been entrusted with these huge properties that mean so much to people, over generations.  What have you learned about how far you can take things without hurting the thing that it was originally?
DI BONAVENTURA:  I have a very simple measure of it, for me.  The first thing I believe is, if you don’t change it a bit, it’s not going to work.  You don’t want it to be exactly what you remember it as.  I remember with Transformers 1 and G.I. Joe 1, you could hear people go, “They screwed it up!  Oh, my god, they’ve destroyed my childhood!”  And then, you look back at those cartoons and they were great when you were a kid, but when you look at them now, they’re clunky as hell.  You’re like, “Really?!  You want the robots to look like that?!  You want the Joes to really talk like that and be like that?!  No, I don’t think so!”  If you’re not evolving it forward, it’s not going to work.  It’s going to richard simmons a few people off, but the vast majority are either going to come along, if they were fans, or they’re going to suddenly become fans, if they weren’t fans.  Part of our responsibility is to bring new people to the table.  They may have dismissed G.I. Joe when they were young, but now they can take away things that Joe stands for, like loyalty, responsibility, valor, comradery, and those sorts of things.  I don’t take those things lightly.  So, you have to take it with great seriousness, and you have to take it with a great sense of evolution.  I always consult five to ten people who are hardcore fans, to see how far I can push it.  When they go, “Wait a second, you can’t do that!  That’s a sin!,” you go, “Okay, fine, we’re not going to do that.  We tried too far.” 
So, no PSAs from The Rock?
DI BONAVENTURA:  We debated the PSAs.  We tried it in the movie, but every time you read it, it was so self-conscious that it didn’t stick.  But in the marketing, you may see some nods to the PSAs, for sure.
Was there a conversation at the beginning of this, where you talked about doing the film in 3D, or did that only come later on?
DI BONAVENTURA:  Yes, in the beginning of it, when Paramount first greenlit it, they said they wanted to shoot it in 3D, and we did, too.  But, we couldn’t mount the movie in 12 weeks and shoot it in 3D, and they said we didn’t have anymore time, so we all agreed on shooting it in 2D.  When the news came that we were going to get pushed, it was shocking, at first.  You gear your life to that thing, and then, suddenly, that thing is not there anymore.  But then, you go, “You’re going to spend more money to make our movie better?  Great!” 
Did the studio just drop the change in release date on you, one day? 
DI BONAVENTURA:  Yeah, pretty much.  It was shocking, at first, not because you’re like, “Oh, my god, what a horrible thing?,” but your life, your vacations, your kids and your work flow are going right towards there.  You plan your whole life around that thing, and then, suddenly, you’re changing a date.  When they gave us the reason, Jon and I both looked at each other and said, “Let’s go!”  It probably helps me a bit, having been a head of a studio ‘cause there are a lot of different reasons why you move a film.  There are plenty of examples where it’s been indicative of a movie that’s not good, and there are plenty of examples where that has nothing to do with it.  You’ve just got to be willing to brace yourself a little bit for the initial outbreak of, “Oh, the movie sucks!  They didn’t believe in it!”  That’s pretty short-lived though, in its duration.
Were you concerned with retailers having already gotten the toys and merchandise?
DI BONAVENTURA:  That was hard for them.  That’s different than for the filmmakers.  For us, we thought, “Okay, great!”  I look at the 3D and I’m like, “Wow, this looks really cool!”  I’m happy that we’ve done it.  I didn’t have to mount stuff in my store, and then take it down and grumble about stock. 
How do you counter people who feel like 3D is just gimmicky and doesn’t really add anything to a story, especially when it’s not actually shot that way?  What do you think converting this film to 3D brought to it, that it didn’t have in 2D? 
DI BONAVENTURA:  I think there’s a freshness to it.  Knowing the film so well, I see a scene now and I’m like, “Wow, that’s totally different.”  It’s almost like seeing the film again, for the first time.  For those people who haven’t seen it yet, 3D is very dynamic and, when you get it right, it’s visually appealing.  I don’t know if everyone will love it, or even like it, but I look at it and say that it adds a whole [new layer].  There’s the element that 3D adds that’s playful and fun, and then there are things where, as a filmmaker, you look and go, “Wow, that scene felt like a normal scene, but because of the depth of it, it just feels different.”  I think two, three or four years from now, when we’re so used to 3D, it won’t have that effect.  But right now, it feels different.
What was it about Jon M. Chu’s take on the film that appealed to you?
DI BONAVENTURA:  Jon has a really strong sense of aesthetic.  From the beginning, he aligned with me about how to make this as gritty as it could feel, but also as comic booky as it could feel.  It was about trying to find the duality of that, which I thought was so successful with The Joker.  That was very comic booky, but it was very gritty.  That’s the pinnacle of it, in that character and the way Chris Nolan did that.  That’s what we tried to accomplish here.  Some filmmakers want to make apologies about the kinds of movies they make, genre wise, but he wasn’t making any apologies about making a comic book movie.  He was really excited to make a comic book movie.  The hardest thing, as a producer, is to find a director who does the picture for all the right reasons, and not just because they know it’s successful or that they can do a good job, but in their bones, they love that genre.  Jon loved the genre.
What did your tenure at Warner Bros. include, franchise wise, and what did that teach you about how to handle it now, as a producer?
DI BONAVENTURA: The touchstones for me would be The Matrix, which I pushed through, and Harry Potter, which I bought.  Those two franchises taught me a lot about quality of effects, quality of execution, and the retail side of it and how mammoth that is.  A lot of people say, “Oh, you’re just making toys and sheets,” but I’m always amazed.  That guy had Bumblebee underwear on!  A lot of people look at that and go, “It’s so commercial,” but that’s nonsense.  It’s part of our world.  It means people are passionate about it.  How great is it that they had Star Wars sheets?  It doesn’t make me turn my nose up at the movie because there are things like that.  I think it can go a little too far sometimes.  I remember being petitioned for the Harry Potter toilet paper, and I thought that might be a little far.  There are certain times where people take it too far.  But, one of the great things about movies is that people get that excited about what you’re doing.  I just shot two movies in England and the Harry Potter tour is this huge thing there.  I love that that occurred.  I love it for [J.K. Rowling], I love it for all the filmmakers, and I love it for all of us who got to be a part of it.  We did something right.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens in theaters on March 29th. 

[rubie]

January 25, 2013
Jon M. Chu and Lorenzo di Bonaventura Talk G.I. Joe: RetaliationThe director and producer of the upcoming sequel's 3D and ninjas
by Jim Vejvoda IGN
We got to chat this week with G.I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon Chu and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura about the forthcoming sequel, which was abruptly shifted from its original summer 2012 release to March 29, 2013 in order to convert the film to 3D. Such a radical move naturally got the tongues of the media and fanboys alike wagging that there must be something wrong with the movie given such a last-minute change.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation was shot in 2D, and while the filmmakers initially kicked around the idea of shooting it in 3D the film's very short pre-production window nixed that possibility. Di Bonaventura, a veteran producer and former studio boss, knew that the perception was going to be out there after the studio, not the filmmakers, made the sudden push to convert G.I. Joe: Retaliation to 3D: "It was shocking at first, not because it’s like, 'Oh my God, what a horrible thing.” It’s just, like, your life, your vacations, your kids, your workflow is all going right towards A. You plan your whole life around that thing. Suddenly, boom. “Okay, great. We’re changing the date, huh? Why?' Then they gave the reason, and Jon and I both sort of looked at each other and went, 'Okay, they’re going to spend a lot of money to make our movie look better. Let’s go. Where are we going?' Some filmmakers -- it probably helps me a bit having been the head of a studio, too, because there’s a lot of different reasons why you move a film. There are plenty of examples where it’s indicative of a movie that’s not good, and there have been plenty of examples where it has nothing to do with that. You’ve just got to be willing to brace yourself a little bit for the initial outbreak of, 'Oh, it sucks! They didn’t believe in it,' whatever that piece is. That’s pretty short, though, really in its duration."
The producer added, "There was a ton of stories that were completely inaccurate, that we shot all this new footage for Channing [Tatum] and all this stuff. We never shot another frame. Trust me, I’ve been asked over the last few months, and I don’t know how it happened. My experience is you can’t possibly win against whatever the tidal wave is coming at you. I think for us, it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to show you the first round of footage, to go, 'Look, guys. This is what we’re doing, so you can decide for yourselves about the quality of it, and you can decide the attitude of it. You can hear from us what we’ve been doing.' If enough of you start saying, 'Well, wait a second. They didn’t have new reshoots and all this stuff.'"
The footage presentation that di Bonaventura is referring to is the four-minute preview attached to worldwide IMAX, RealD and digital 3D showings of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which opens today. The preview will run throughout the entirety of Hansel & Gretel's theatrical engagement. 
Chu was also frustrated with the rumors about his film once the release date shift was announced. "I didn’t want to answer any of the crazy rumors that were happening at the time, but the reality was the 3D. We were told we wanted to turn it into 3D, and luckily, they were like, “Well, we didn’t have the time to do that.” It just so happened that March was the date they could do it in, so that gave us enough time to focus in on it. We didn’t reshoot anything," said Chu. "This is a spectacle movie. It’s a fun movie to experience. The 3D only helps. If it was this big, dramatic, dark movie, I’m not quite sure it would be worth that wait, but this one is. It only lifted our biggest strengths."
That's not say the 3D post-conversion hasn't been without its challenges and headaches. "It was more legwork than I expected. To get it right takes not one, three, five, six go-rounds. It takes 12 to 20, literally, watching these scenes over and over again and just making little adjustments here and there, which actually feels a little more framed even when we shot it in 3D, you couldn’t adjust some of the things that we can adjust, some of the edges and what we want to clean up. There are scenes that are cut back, and we are actually still in that process of finding those things," said Chu.
Di Bonaventura, who cut his teeth on 3D producing Transformers: Dark of the Moon, said "there’s a freshness to (3D) that, for me, knowing the film so well, I see a scene in 3D and I’m like, 'Wow, that’s totally different!' It’s almost like seeing the film again for the first time. For those people who didn’t see it the first time, I think what it does is it gives it a -- 3D is very dynamic. When you get it right, it’s visually appealing. ... I’ll give you an example of what it did for me. That scene in the hallway became more mythological. There’s a sense of, like, when you look down there, it was always that way in 2D; you look down there and there’s two guys facing off. But now he’s way down there, you know what I mean? There’s a thing about it. As the throwing stars come at you, I think that’s kind of fun. There’s that kind of element that 3D adds, which is so playful and fun."
While not every fan will ultimately agree on whether 3D adds to their enjoyment of the film, one thing every Joe fan can agree on liking is ninjas. "I’ll tell you one thing: kids love ninjas," said di Bonaventura. "One of the things that we designed during the first movie, one of the big complaints was there was not enough ninjas. It’s one of the reasons why there’s a major storyline that goes on that’s only about ninjas. It’s really fun. It’s a great sense of fantasy when you go into that world."
Chu said, "Ninjas are obviously a big part of the movie. What makes it really unique from other franchises is that it has both the military and ninja side. We wanted to make sure we did something really different, something we’d never seen before. And because they have masks on and don’t talk anyway, it was just a perfect place, and we could tell the story with their fighting. And that scene [the preview shown with Hansel & Gretel]  is a cut-up version. When you the see the sequence altogether, it’s really fun. In fact, the fight between Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes has no music. Here, we have a little bit just to help connect it to the other scenes that are coming, but not the actual scene. We had a score for it a long time ago, and one day we just played it with the sound effects guys without the music, just to hear the effects. It was so awesome, we’re like, 'We need to have their whole fight without music.' We brought it in and tried it, and new people would freak out a little bit, but it was so awesome that you can’t deny it’s fun to watch without it."
"I always tried to remind myself of the things I always wanted in a G.I. Joe movie," said Chu, a lifelong G.I. Joe fan. "You want the ninjas right up against the military guys. You want that humor. You want the camaraderie. You want to know that each one is different, that they’re not just a group fighting one thing. They all have personality. Even if it doesn’t really make sense, that it’s just fun and you just go for it."

[rubie]

January 30, 2013
"G.I. Joe: Retaliation" custom motorcycle
Source: Future Motorcycles

  “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” is an upcoming 2013 American action movie directed by Jon M. Chu. The movie is supposed to be full of special effects and various vehicles. One of them is an impressive, heavily modified custom motorcycle, based on on Ducati Monster 796 and armed with four Heckler&Koch MP7 submachine guns. The brutal visual design and weapons on board make this bike to be a dream of every movie villain.

[Ernie]

I saw the G.I. Joe movie before "Retaliation" and maybe "Retaliation" is better?
:-??