G.I. Joe: Retaliation

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May 1, 2012

TRAILER TRASHIN’

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION BRINGS THE HIGH EXPLOSIVE FUN

Written by Timothy Monforton cinemanerdz.com

With the release of The Avengers this Friday, the 2012 summer movie season officially begins. As an appropriate tie-in, this week’s Trailer Trashin’ features another summer movie about a team of larger-than-life heroes: G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Premise: The war between the elite fighting force G.I. Joe and the terrorist organization Cobra is reignited when Cobra agents within the U.S. government frame the G.I. Joe team as traitors and order a military strike against them. Most of the Joes are wiped out, and only a small group of survivors remain – including Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), and Snake Eyes (Ray Park). Outnumbered and outgunned, they hatch a plan to defeat Cobra and save the world, and the Joes must turn to their one remaining ally – the original G.I. Joe, General Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis).

My take: As one of the seemingly few people who unabashedly enjoyed 2009′s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and thought it should have been more successful than it was, it was a pleasant surprise to hear that a sequel was actually on the way. As bits of news came out related to the sequel, there wasn’t anything that sounded bad, but there also wasn’t anything that blew me away. Then the first trailer came out, and it was way more impressive than I had expected. By the time they showed the Cobra banners flying in front of the White House, I was hooked.

I was surprised when I first heard that only a handful of the actors from the first film were returning for the sequel. Back for this second tour of duty are Channing Tatum as field commander Duke, Ray Park as the Joes’ ninja Snake Eyes, Lee Byung-hun as Cobra’s ninja Storm Shadow, Jonathan Pryce as the U.S. President, and (not seen in this trailer) Arnold Vosloo as Cobra’s master of disguise Zartan. Among the new cast members, the most prominent is clearly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as heavy weapon specialist Roadblock, and he seems right at home here. I think Bruce Willis, who I discussed my fandom of in a previous column, is a fantastic choice to play General Colton, but I’m curious to see how big of a role he has, and I really hope the filmmakers don’t have him betray the Joes or something clichéd like that. The other featured new Joes – D.J. Cotrona as warrant officer Flint, Adrianne Palicki as covert ops trooper Lady Jaye, and Elodie Yung as ninja infiltrator Jinx – seem to be handling themselves well from what we’ve seen so far. On the villain tip, Ray Stevenson, whom I liked a lot in both Punisher: War Zone (2008) and Thor (2011), looks cool and menacing as Cobra saboteur Firefly. And the glimpses we’ve gotten of the new and improved Cobra Commander, with Faran Tahir taking over for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, look really nice, especially considering his lame translucent skull-mask from last time has been replaced with something that both looks better and is much more like the classic cartoon version.

Director Jon M. Chu at first seemed like an unusual choice to replace Stephen Sommers at the helm of the G.I. Joe film series, considering that Chu’s previous feature credits are the dance films Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) and Step Up 3D (2010) and the concert film Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011). But he seems to be handling himself well so far, and it makes sense that someone who’s spent much of his career filming choreographed dances would also be good at shooting action scenes. Additionally, Chu is working from a screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the scribes behind Zombieland (2009), so I feel confident in thinking he has some solid material to work with.

Believe it or not, I actually like what they’re doing in terms of the story here. Having Cobra present themselves to the public as a Blackwater-like private military contractor working for the U.S. government is kind of brilliant. That, combined with the fact that the Joes have their personnel and equipment largely wiped out, is a creative way to up the stakes and put the team at a disadvantage. And I’m glad they kept with the big reveal from the end of the first film that – spoiler from almost three years ago – the U.S. President has been replaced by Zartan in disguise.

This sequel also looks like it’ll totally blow away its predecessor in terms of action. The attack by Cobra on the Joes’ headquarters/encampment, which I assume will be pretty early in the film, looks impressive, and I imagine things will only escalate from there. After the first film had the bad guys level the Eiffel Tower and surrounding area with metal-eating nano-machines, they’re upping the stakes this time by destroying London – or at least a large portion of it – with what appears to be a satellite-mounted earthquake machine. But the scene I’m most impressed with is the mountain fight, where Snake Eyes and Jinx are fighting a group of red-suited Cobra ninjas while all of them are hanging by ropes on the side of a mountain.

I don’t feel the need to complain about much here. Sure, it’s silly and not at all realistic, but what would be the point of doing a realistic take on G.I. Joe? Sure, it’s likely that no one in the cast will be flexing any acting muscles, but as long as the way they portray their characters fits in the world the two films have established, that’s not a problem. The only thing I really feel concerned about is that, with such a large cast, some of the characters are probably going to get the shaft in terms of stuff to do. In particular, I’m guessing that Eddie Hargitay as Tunnel Rat, Matt Gerald as Zandar, and Joseph Mazzello as Mouse won’t get much screen time.

It may sound ridiculous to lavish this much attention on a silly popcorn movie based on a line od toys, but I don’t care. After the holy trinity of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and Prometheus, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is one of my most anticipated films this summer. It looks completely ridiculous, but it also looks like tons of fun. And sometimes, that is exactly what a summer movie should be.

ANTICIPATION: Not even Cobra Commander himself could stop me from being there opening weekend – Yo Joe!

Release Date: June 29th, 2012

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May 1, 2012

GI Joe Retaliation Japanese Poster

by Shin Densetsu hisstank.com

We now have a look at the GI Joe Retaliation Japanese Poster thanks to HissTank boards member VideoViper. The poster features:

Joe Colton played by Bruce Willis

Storm Shadow played by Lee Byung Hun

EDIT: HissTank boards member Shimaneboy has provided a rough translation of the text, read on for the translation!

The right side:

最強の刺客

saikyou no shikaku

The Strongest Assassin

The left side:

最強の助つ人

saikyou no tasuketsu-hito

The Strongest Helper

The middle:

斬られるか。 撃たれるか。

kirareru ka. utareru ka.

Will they be killed? Will they be beaten?

The bottom:

勝つのはどっちだ

katsu no wa docchi da?

Which one will win?

The Title:

Ｇ．Ｉ．ジョー　バック２リベンジ

GI Joe bakku ２ rebenji

GIJoe Back 2 Revenge (G.I.Joe 2 Retaliation)

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May 2, 2012

Exclusive Interview: 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation'

Director Jon Chu on Why You Should Give The Sequel A Chance

by Peter Sciretta slashfilm.com

While in Las Vegas for CinemaCon, I got the opportunity to sit down with director Jon Chu and chat about G.I. Joe: Retaliation. We talk about why people who didn’t like the first Stephen Sommers film Rise of Cobra should give the sequel a chance, how his vision of a GI Joe movie is more rooted in the cartoons and toys of his (and my) childhood, reinventing Cobra Commander, how he got the job, what Paramount saw in films like the Step Up series and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never to earn him a chance at a Summer action film, demystifying the movie pitching presentation process and more.

Question: How’s it going?

Jon Chu: I’m good. I’m a little exhausted, but I’m good.

Question: You started early this morning, right?

Jon Chu: We started early this morning, but I just flew in from Miami. We were doing ADR with Dwayne [Johnson] in Miami. So I flew over there and flew right back here and then we are back in the edit tomorrow.

Question: That’s crazy.

Jon Chu: It’s nuts.

Question: Well I’m going to start with the hard questions and then move our way to your favorite color.

Jon Chu: Yes! (Laughs)

Question: I liked the first movie. It’s dumb but fun.

Jon Chu: Me too,

Question: But it seems like there were a lot of people that don’t.

Jon Chu: Yes.

Question: I wanted to know, why should people who hated the first film give this sequel a chance?

Jon Chu: It’s crazy, because as polarizing as that first movie was, people still went and saw it and people still went and saw it over and over and the DVD sold like crazy, so…

Question: And then you made a sequel, so they must have made money.

Jon Chu: Excatly and especially now like hearing the fans say what they want and don’t want and which characters they wish were coming back and which weren’t. I mean it seems like more people like it than people will admit, which is crazy. And we are not trying to compete with that movie, we are trying to make a different movie. To me, the GI JOE product means something very different than the filmmakers of the last movie. To me, GI JOE is this very personal thing. I grew up on GI JOES. I grew up playing GI JOES and so I have a very specific idea and it’s probably really different from people who first knew about GI JOE with the 12 inch action figure, but we really tried to bridge all of those mythologies with everything you know about Joe and put it into one. For instance, Joe Colton, one of the number one questions when I first signed on to the movie everyone would be like “Well who is playing Joe?” I’m like “What are you talking about? There is no “Joe.” Then I remembered Joe Colton and was like “That would be really awesome to give Joe a face and a personality and there’s only one iconic person that could ever play that and that would be Bruce [Willis].”

Question: Yeah, he’s perfect.

Jon Chu: I didn’t know if Bruce would ever do it, but he jumped on board and it was just perfect. So to me I think it’s just… If you loved GI JOE or if you know nothing about GI JOE and you just like a story that has ninjas and lots of things blowing up, you should give our movie a shot.

Question: As much as I liked the first film, it didn’t really feel like the GI JOE I grew up with, which I think is the same GI JOE you grew up with. Can you talk about going more in that direction?

Jon Chu: Yeah, I mean something that Lorenzo [Di Bonaventura] and I talked about very early was we wanted you to feel the power of the punch, something I was missing in the last movie, I wanted to know that these guys were really fighting. I wanted to see the scratches and patterns on patterns. Growing up, when I would play with them in my backyard, I would have these week long epic adventures and I’m convinced that’s where I learned how to tell stories and make movies, because of my toys and in those cases when a guy’s arm fell off, that was even better, because it made the story more interesting and you would lose a guy for a day and then you’d find him again and they’d appear again. So all of those things, to me, is what we tried to build into the movie, that you actually felt the world and the action; each action piece was different from the next with different textures, different fighting style, different shooting style, and so it never felt like a repeat of an action scene and that you actually revealed stuff about each character. So the way someone retreats or the way someone steps up to plate at that moment all reveals stuff about characters and even in my past movies it wasn’t about… I was never a dancer before doing dance movies, it was always about storytelling and that movement, to me, tells more story than words could ever tell and in an action movie you have more opportunities to do that.

Question: Totally. Well that’s one of the questions I wanted to get to, if you look at your credits, you’re not the person most people would expect to take on a GI JOE movie… but after seeing that five minutes I totally get it. What you did for dancing, when Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are going at it, I get it.

Jon Chu: Thank you.

Question: Why do you think they chose you over other directors who probably had an action background? What did they see in you?

Jon Chu: Well I mean I have a relationship with Paramount from when we did the Bieber movie. I didn’t know anything about Bieber. All I knew was I had a YouTube channel, so I knew what was going on online and I loved the… To me the pitch was sort of the everyman’s story, the hero’s story of a boy finding technology and having his destiny sort of fulfilled. It was a fairytale in a lot of ways. It was ROCKY in a lot of ways and we had real footage to back it up, so I think they didn’t know what the Bieber movie would be, they sort of were like “Well we don’t know, it’s just this kid…” I think what we created there they really understood and respected, that we were telling a theatrical story in there.

Question: I feel like that movie a lot of people kind of mocked and then when they saw it they were like “Wow, this is a good movie.”

Jon Chu: Even me going into it, I was like “What the heck?” Then I was like “Well let me go hang out for a second and see what the story could be before I commit” and hanging out there with him I saw the everyman, even though he’s this pop star and he can be this way or that way. He had a mom, he had a manager that was basically his brother, and his father, and all of this stuff that was really, as a storyteller, really interesting. I thought people had no idea what was actually happening, so I thought that was cool. I think my relationship with Paramount, when they saw that and we would talk about other movies and we started talking about JOE and I told them how much I loved JOE and what I thought that the JOE franchise could be in an era when we are trying to figure out what it means to be a hero and a leader in the world, for America to be a hero and a leader. What a perfect moment to redefine a brand that is along those same lines, that can help us find our way of what it means to be a hero and what it means to be a leader.

Question: Did you have to like edit a package together of what your [vision was]?

Jon Chu: I did edit some stuff together. I mean any pitch that I go into, I use images, I use music, I use video. We shoot stuff and we edit stuff together, just to communicate tone and what we would do.

Question: I feel like that’s the biggest part of the process that people that read the website don’t know anything about. I’ve recently seen a lot of that kind of stuff and these packages that are put together, really a lot of work goes into them, and no one sees it besides a few executives.

Jon Chu: It’s getting crazier and crazier, because when I first started there wasn’t like Keynote and all of this. I mean there was Power Point, but that was kind of cheesy and whatever and not everybody had a screen that you could plug into and all of that stuff, so I would do giant binders. I still have collections of folders and folders like when I see an image in a magazine I cut it out or if I see something online I put it to the side. So I have these banks of images, so when I’m going into a project, I think about what those images are and draw them out. I used to put them in these binders, so I have a shelf full of these binders for every project I’ve pitched for, things I never got and things that I did get, and now it’s just on a file, on a drive and I can just present it. Every studio has a 50 inch screen that I can just start talking and Steve Jobs it a little bit.

Question: Yeah, you can hook your iPhone right into it…

Jon Chu: And I could cut something in a night. I have a bunch of videos that I keep on file with things that I like aesthetically and then I can cut things together and communicate a lot better.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about reinventing Cobra Commander? This is the Cobra Commander I grew up with and it’s very different than the first film, so how did we get from what we saw in the first film to this?

Jon Chu: We tell that story in the movie, so you’re going to have to see the movie to fully know how that transformation is and it was difficult to find how. (Laughs)

Question: So it’s not like it just starts out like that?

Jon Chu: No, we don’t start there. We actually see how it all sort of unfolds, but it definitely is fun. That was one of the most fun challenges to figure out. I want Cobra… I freaking follow Cobra Commander on Twitter and I love all of those things and that’s iconic. There are very few villains that are as iconic as Cobra Commander, so I wanted him to be a presence in this movie. In fact, I can’t wait to see more of him in future things and what he can become, because I still think this is just the beginning of Cobra and we had a lot of fun designing the costume. Both he and Snake Eyes took months of designing, redesigning, going too far one way, then coming back, then going too far that way, so…

Question: It’s cool, because he looks like what I imagine Cobra Commander looked like in my childhood, but he doesn’t. He looks so much cooler.

Jon Chu: Yes. We had a great… Louise Mingenback, who was our costume designer, she was amazing. She doesn’t know a lot about JOE necessarily… She did all of the X MEN stuff and things like that, but she is like super high fashion, like she knows what looks good. There was always a thing back and froth between us of like what fit the comic and what she brought to the table.

Question: I have one last question for you. What’s next? What’s after GI JOE?

Jon Chu: You know, I don’t know. We are still finishing the movie right now. All of my focus is there and I’m excited. I think it will be interesting to see how the audience reacts, how they like what we do. I love action now. I’m stuck in this action adventure world, which was really fun. I love designing a world. I love creating the red ninjas and Snake Eyes and designing the vehicles and all of that. To work with a team like that was just one of the best experiences of my life, so I hope I can build another world.

Question: I hope so, too. When they were talking about the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES short list I was expecting your name to pop up on that. I just saw that and was like “That’s the next…”

Jon Chu: (Laughs) I love TURTLES. I had the blimp with the helium in it and all of that stuff, but I know the stuff they are doing for TURTLES is really, really incredible. I can’t wait for that and to see what they do with that.

Question: Well thank you very much, Jon.

Jon Chu: Thank you. I appreciate it.

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May 1, 2012

Aint It Cool News talks to director Jon M. Chu about ninjas, Cobra Commander, and leading Bruce Willis and The Rock into battle in this Summer's G.I. JOE RETALIATION!!

Source: aintitcool.com

Hi folks, Russ Sheath from AICN Comics here and I was lucky enough to spend some time talking with Jon M. Chu, director of the upcoming G.I. Joe Retaliation.

First off, I’ve got to say that its easy to tell that Jon Chu ‘gets’ G.I. Joe. Starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Bruce WIllis, G.I. Joe Retaliation is this summers sequel to 2009’s Rise of Cobra, a movie that while commercially successful, was met with a less enthusiastic response from both critics and fans of the 30 year old mythos.

The reaction to G.I. Joe Retaliation however, has been nothing short of remarkable. With each successive trailer and image checking all the right boxes for fans and ‘civilian’ movie goers alike, all indications point towards this being the movie G.I. Joe followers have been waiting to see.

Snake-Eyes with no lips? Check.

Cobra Commander looking like the terrorist leader we all know and loathe? Check.

Great visual effects, epic action and ninjas fighting on the side of a mountain? Check.

Two of the biggest, most charismatic movie stars on the planet? Check and check again.

There’s no doubting that G.I .Joe is reloaded, breathing new life into a franchise that had stumbled when it was barely out of the stalls. Retaliation proves a grittier, dirtier and more realistic Joe - ready for battle.

With Johnson, a global superstar of screen and wresting, reveling in his new found reputation as ‘franchise viagra’ and Bruce Wills being...well...Bruce Willis, the question on everyones lips is: "Who is the film’s director, Jon M. Chu?'

With nine movies to his name including Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and 2008’s Step Up 2: The Streets, there’s no doubting Jon Chu’s experience as a director - but you may be forgiven for exercising ‘the peoples eyebrow’ when he was announced as the vision behind an action adventure movie, let alone a summer tentpole franchise such as G.I. Joe.

Despite the obvious pressure of helming this new vision of the G.I. Joe universe, Chu appears naturally at ease, proving endlessly enthusiastic about his role as gatekeeper into the cinematic world of G.I. Joe. Chu discusses his task with authority, in a way assuring you that he is not only respectful of the source material, but is also a fan.

Talking about the relationship between Snake Eyes and Scarlett, Cobra Island and the potential difficulties of introducing Serpentor to the Joe universe, Chu describes the mythos in a way that you don’t get from a ‘G.I. Joe 101’ lesson one afternoon at a toy manufacturer. You get it from a ‘relationship’ with the source material.

I spoke to Jon Chu, and as a huge G.I. Joe fan, I could have happily talked for much longer about story telling, his love for the source material, and his vision for the future of G.I. Joe. Sadly, the first few minutes of our conversation were lost in the transatlantic static (Cobra scrambling?), but I began with congratulating Jon on the reaction that G.I. Joe Retaliation has received so far.

I asked Jon about how he came to direct GI Joe Retaliation and how that translated from a background in dance and music films. Explaining that he doesn’t have a dance background but is rather a story teller, Chu said that he regarded action movies, much like his movies about dance and music, are all about movement.

The static unscrambled, I asked Jon: What are the challenges when shifting onto a production that is so much larger and more complex than the films he has previously been involved in?

Jon Chu (JC): There’s a lot of action sequences. It’s been a fun thing to learn with explosions and things that I’ve never worked with before. Thats all logistics, we have a great crew and they really helped me, but all it came down to once the camera was turned on, was the actors and that lens. That’s what we really focused on.

There’s a lot of action sequences, and you are dealing with things like safety issues on a huge set where you have 600 people waiting for your next call and you have actors waiting to fill their part of the story. There’s a lot of companies involved. That was a challenge.

Everyone pretty much from the beginning of this movie agreed on the type of movie we were making and what we were trying to do with it and that made everything a lot smoother.

Russ Sheath (RS): What genres interest you the most, can you see yourself trying different things in the future?

JC: Right now I love and I’m addicted to the action-adventure movie. We are literally creating a world, and as a story teller its the first time I’ve done this from the ground up. I’ll be playing around in this world for a bit and we’ll see what happens. Of course I want to try all different kinds of genre.

RS: Can you shed some light on what your priorities were to ‘fix’, if thats the correct term, from the first movie?

JC: You know, It was never about fixing, for me it was all about doing ‘our’ version. The thing about G.I. Joe is that it’s reinvented over and over again, sort of like Batman or Spider-Man, in a way.

What were the Joes that I always wanted? I wanted people to ‘feel the punch’ and ‘feel the power of the punch’ in this movie. These guys get hurt, they get scratches and they have wear and tear to them.

They aren’t just a group, each one is an individual. I always loved that each one had a different personality. Snake Eyes had one personality, Roadblock had another. Flint had another. Duke had another, and each one had their own flaws and ways to ‘get there’.

G.I. Joe is about gadgets and vehicles, but at the core...and why I love this world...it’s about human beings being leaders and heroes. It was about human choices, and doing the right thing, and doing the hard thing, and that was something we really tried to focus on in this movie.

It’s defining what it takes to be a hero and leader in your class, in your city, in your country, and in the world at a time when...what it means to be a leader is being questioned all around the world. It’s a great question to explore.

Thats why Bruce plays a big part in the movie - he teaches these guys that it’s not from the outside-in, but being a soldier is from the inside-out. It’s about being a human being, and not being a soldier.

Of course, high flying ninjas and crazy fights were always going to be part of it.

I wanted, obviously, humor - and it doesn’t take it self too seriously. But at the same time, as a kid, I did believe these guys were real. I did believe they were really shooting, and I did believe that we had enemies like that. So, I really wanted that ‘in between’ aspect of it not being ‘so’ fantasy. They are real human beings, and they are just like you....just bigger than you.

RS: Can you give us something to look out for or that the fans might not be aware of, as yet?

JC: We are having a lot of fun with Cobra ‘being’ the Joes in this version. As you know, the multi-media aspect of movies now means the story doesn’t begin and end in the movie, it actually can begin way before...online...and can continue afterwards. We have stuff going on that you should be looking out for online such as the ‘Cobra Special Forces’ site, its all part of our goal.

We have a lot of little things that I don’t want to spoil, other than to look out for them.

Maybe there’s some Cobra cover companies, maybe there are characters that we are setting up here who come back in a different form. Definitely there’s some things in there which may seem like ‘nothing in this movie, but they have a purpose!

RS: Can you shed some light on the much discussed ‘Cobra Commander Conundrum’ - which admittedly sounds like an episode of The Big Bang Theory? Is that Rex who end up wearing the Cobra Commander suit, in the movie?

JC: I don’t know where all this crazy, speculative stuff came from. We were asked the question, Lorenzo [di Bonaventura, Producer) and I at Toy Fair...

‘Is that the same actor’?

I was like...

‘No, its not the same actor’.

‘Is that Joseph Gordon Levitt?’

‘No, it is not!’

But it is Rex!

We are continuing that story, there is no other Cobra Commander. We can put that rumor to rest. I was waiting for this moment to finally clarify, I’m glad you asked that.

RS: How was it bringing together Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Bruce Willis?

JC: That was insane! I never thought it would happen. Bruce and Dwayne, the legend and the icon together, in one frame and then you throw in Snake Eyes right next to them, that was pretty insane. They had a lot of fun, we were trying to keep up with them and keep the camera rolling. The things they would riff off were just hilarious. They had a great time.

RS: This is a question that you may not want to answer for fear of a SPOILER. Will we be seeing the demise of characters like Duke, or will there be the opportunity for him to come back?

JC: All I can say is: you should always expect the unexpected in the G.I. Joe. ALWAYS expect the unexpected.

Did you put the actors through a boot camp to learn about being soldiers?

JC: We worked with Harry Humphries, who was a SEAL, and we bought in a bunch of SEALS to our movie to help guide our actors and myself. So it was like ‘OK, we need to get the actors from here...to here...and then to the nuclear warhead. How would they do it’?

They would give us all the jargon and all the actions. They would, literally, choreograph that. The actors really leaned on them about how to say things correctly, and even now we are still working with them with extra dialogue and stuff. We are doing ADR and adding more and more.

RS: Do you have any favorite story lines from the G.I. Joe comic book?

JC: I always loved the relationship between Snake-Eyes and Scarlett. That love story was like Romeo and Juliet. We are planting a lot of seeds for the audience who don’t know how ninjas and the military exist in one world...with a guy in a silver mask...we have to set things up. There’s plenty of things. Cobra Island, I wouldn’t necessarily get into the Serpentor arena, but....

RS: If there’s an opportunity to return for G.I. Joe 3 would you be keen to helm that movie (should it come about?)

JC: I had a great time on this movie, and we are still finishing it up and focusing on that. For me, we are building a world...and the beginning of a world...and there’s so much more in the G.I. Joe universe we can add and if you build the foundation. We can go anywhere.

A massive thank you to Jon Chu for his time this afternoon. Follow Jon on Twitter and GI Joe Retaliation's Twitter is HERE.

GI Joe Retaliation is released on 29th June 2012 in the US and Canada and 8th August 2012 in the UK

Thanks to Justin from @generalsjoes and to Justin P for questions input.

Follow Russ Sheath @russwords on Twitter.

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May 2, 2012

The Politics And Satire Of GI: Joe Retaliation, With Director John M. Chu

by Brendon Connelly bleedingcool.com

Earlier in the week I got have a good chat with John M. Chu about the upcoming GI: Joe Retaliation. We spoke at length about one stand-out action sequence in the film, and I’ll be bringing you lots on that later.

First, though, I thought I’d share what Chu had to say about the film’s politics, and the satirical humour that Zombieland‘s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have baked into the screenplay.

To me, GI Joe, as much as it has been rah-rah American soldier stuff, is really about human beings. As a kid I didn’t see all that other stuff and it was about Roadblock doing the right thing, about Duke doing the right thing, about what it means to be a leader, what it means to be a hero.

In this movie we really stripped them of the title of GI Joe. We make the name mean nothing and it’s just people. They have to fight their way back, and fight the President of the United States, which is a crazy concept, and Cobra, their enemy has now replaced them. Cobra are the ones doing the PSAs, they’re the ones being touted by the US government.

We bring back Bruce Willis as Joe Colton, the original Joe, to infuse in the characters what it means to be a soldier without all the weaponry, all the labels, all the medals.

The film has a lot of satire. We’re trying to figure out how much to put in, how much not to put in. Right now we have a decent amount.

Jonathan Pryce is so hilarious, and so dry. An amazingly talented guy. He indulges as President Zartan, as the imposter president. He goes after everything in it. We had to rein him in a little bit, but people are definitely going to have fun with the evil president.

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May 4, 2012

G.I. Joe: Retaliation to Hold World Premiere in South Korea on June 15

by: jbarky soompi.com

The main cast of G.I. Joe: Retaliation and the production team will come to South Korea on June 14. The world premiere of G.I. Joe: Retaliation will be held in South Korea!

On June 14, they will hold a press conference with the director and actors. The day afterwards on June 15, the movie will have its premiere and there will also be a red carpet event. It is the first time that a Hollywood film is being premiered in South Korea. This shows how big of a role Lee Byung Hun (Who portrays Storm Shadow) is playing in terms of promotions, and is a testimony to his world star status.

The basic synopsis of the film is that the G.I. Joe Team is in conflict with Zartan, Storm Shadow, and Firefly who are all under the released Cobra Commander. Zartan is disguised as the President of the United States and he frames the G.I. Joe as traitors. The surviving Joes retaliate against the Cobra Commander.

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May 5, 2012

G.I. Joe: Retaliation Trailer Breakdown With Jon Chu

The G.I. Joe 2 director talks us through the footage

WORDS PHIL DE SEMLYEN empireonline.com

With G.I. Joe: Retaliation’s new trailer blasting onto our screens, there’s a whole new world of Cobra scheming, Bruce-and-Dwayne buddy mayhem, weaponised ‘tec, mysterious ninjas and exploding avalanches for us to chew over. So what’s Cobra's devilish plan? What happens to Channing Tatum’s Duke in that opening reel? And what in the name of the Olympics is happening to London? Who better to talk us through the carnage than Retaliation’s director, Jon Chu? We engaged Empire’s satellite to track down the Step Up 3D and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never man to a Hollywood lot where he promised us “a big action-adventure summer movie” that will introduce G.I. Joe to a new generation. But what was it like going from Bieber to Bruce?

Origins

Justin Bieber and Bruce Willis have a lot more in common than you’d think! It’s fun to do that jump as a storyteller. I was never a professional dancer before I did the Step Up movie but I love to throw myself into a world, absorb it and fall in love with it. I grew up with ‘Joe’ - I had all the toys and used to watched the cartoons every afternoon - and this movie will introduce it to a new generation.

Buzzing Bombs

We’re calling these ‘Fireflies’. When we sat down with Hasbro for the first time, they said: “Weaponry and vehicles – that is G.I. Joe.” We brought some of their designers on our design team and we started designing stuff, stuff that we loved and stuff that

Rock-Shaped Roadblock

I wanted Roadblock in the movie too because he’s such a cool, fun character. When we paired Dwayne (Johnson) up with the character it was like ‘BANG!’. The same went for Joe Colton (Bruce Willis), the original Joe, so you have all these different generations of Joes together.

Desert Storm

The opening sequence was one of the first things we shot. We bring all the Joes together and some mini cooper goes down. We shot in Baton Rouge of all places. There’s this open desert area in the middle of all that swampland and forest.

Duke In Hazard

All I can say [about Duke] is that you never know what’s going to happen in G.I. Joe, and just when you think you know, you may not. Will there be a third-act curveball? I don’t want to give away too much away - just expect the unexpected!

Down The Well

We did throw The Rock down a well. We built it with all this water underneath and I gave Dwayne a small GoPro camera and told him to drop right when he falling, hoping that it would go slightly faster than him and get him as he was falling. On the first try it was absolutely perfect – like something out of Alice In Wonderland – all with this $200 camera the size of your palm.

Meet The Original Joe

Just roll all the cameras and get what you can! When you have an icon and a legend, and you’ve never seen them interact on screen before, that’s a lot of fun. They have a one-liner off in the movie. Bruce doesn’t just do his own thing. He started making fun of Adrianne (Palicki) in the scene as Joe, and Dwayne didn’t know what to do with this. He was laughing but not really bringing it to the scene, and then he went in on it too and she was giving it back to him, and that was great.

Going it Alone

We wanted to strip away some of the gear. The Joes have to start from the ground up because they don’t have the advantage of antage of the weaponry; Cobra has everything. They’re without weapons so it’s about ‘What does it mean to be a soldier?’

President Zartan

Jonathan Pryce plays both the good guy and the bad guy, Zartan, and his energy would definitely change as he switched back and forth. In one scene you’re rooting for him; in the next, you totally want him to die. I’ve got a lot of respect for that guy. Zartan is indulging in every scene. When I asked what the big idea in the film was, they said: “The Joes have to assassinate the President of the United States.” Cobra are now the Joes and they’re seen in the world as a force for good.

Pryce War

Jonathan is kinda like evil Zartan in real life. His humour is so funny but I first met him I thought he hated my guts! He’s totally flat and he doesn’t give you an inkling that he’s joking.

London Falling

We figured that America cities have had it a lot in movies so we tried to work out which city hasn’t been blown up on screen. We have a bunch of English people in our VFX crew and they suggested London, so we said “let’s do it!” The other option was to have the Parisians just finishing rebuilding the Eiffel Tower and then blow it up again!

Silent Storm

I don’t want to give too much away about our homage [to the ‘Silent Issue’], or what Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes are going up against or what’s going on in the scene. It’s not an entirely silent interlude but we decided to have an 11 minute fight scene with no dialogue. Did I think it would work? I don’t know, but we wanted to try it. It was one of our longest sequences to shoot - it spanned weeks. It was a very complex scene, but it was worth it because this is something that no-one’s seen before. We wanted to have at least one thing that no-one’s seen before, with a character that no-one would expect to see, in every action piece in the movie.

Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes was always one of my favourite characters - I used to draw him on my school notebooks. To get him and Roadblock and Joe Colton into the same frame is awesome.

The Ultimate Mesh

Retaliation is part Saving Private Ryan, part 007, part Indiana Jones, part Kung Fu Hustle. We always thought of this as a mash-up film – G.I. Joe was always the ultimate mash-up before mash-ups even existed – and the more genres we can mash-up in it the better. We’re one of the only properties than can get away with mixing all these things up. That’s the fun.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is out in the UK on August 3.

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May 8, 2012

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Storm Shadow & Character Posters for Korea released

Source: Nate 1 l 2 l 3 l 4 l 5

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April 8, 2012

Steven Tyler Reveals Details About New Aerosmith Video

Source: classichitsandoldies.com

On Saturday, Steven Tyler participated in the finale of the latest Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp installment, which took place at the famous Playboy Mansion in Hollywood. Surprisingly, Aerosmith‘s flamboyant frontman says he’d never visited Hugh Hefner‘s hedonistic hideaway before.

“I was too busy in someone’s bathroom getting high,” Tyler explains to Rolling Stone. “I was too busy on tour, I was too busy writing songs. We were just busy.”

Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with ABC News Radio at the event, Tyler reveals some details about the new Aerosmith video, which the group spent 12 hours shooting on Friday.

The raucous rocker reports that the clip is for the band’s new song “Legendary Child,” which will appear on the soundtrack to the upcoming action adventure film G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

“It’s gonna be slammin’,” Tyler says of the track. “[Guitarist] Joe [Perry] was on fire. Wait, you’ll see.”

“Legendary Child” is a new version of a tune originally recorded during the sessions for Aerosmith’s 1991 album, Get a Grip. Tyler says he felt it was a good song to contribute to G.I. Joe because its theme of the band struggling to overcome adversity in the music industry mirrored the battle the movie’s heroes had against their own nemesis.

“G.I. Joe [is] about about deep space and ‘let’s go fight the foe,’” he points out. “And then I thought about where the band came from, and going [into] the music business. If there ever…was a foe, the music business was. So to be successful you had to learn how to climb ladders, jump through hoops and live through burning houses.”

G.I. Joe: Retaliation hits theaters on June 29.

May 10, 2012

Steven Tyler Pleased With G.I Joe Song

Source:

contactmusic.com

Steven Tyler believes Aerosmith's song for the 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' soundtrack is ideal because its overall theme mirrors the movie's onscreen battles.

Steven Tyler believes Aerosmith's song for the 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' soundtrack is ideal because it mirrors the movie's themes.

The band's frontman thinks their track, 'Legendary Child', is the perfect song to accompany the forthcoming action movie - which stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Channing Tatum and Bruce Willis - because its theme of the group struggling to overcome adversity in the music industry is reflected in the film characters' onscreen battles.

He said: '''G.I. Joe' [is] about deep space and 'let's go fight the foe.' And then I thought about where the band came from, and going [into] the music business. ''If there ever... was a foe, the music business was. So to be successful you had to learn how to climb ladders, jump through hoops and live through burning houses.''

Steven revealed the group spent 12 hours filming a video for 'Legendary Child', and he is excited about its release because guitarist Joe Perry was ''on fire'' while they were recording the song.

Speaking to ABC News Radio, he added: ''It's gonna be slammin'. Joe was on fire. Wait, you'll see.''

'G.I Joe: Retaliation' is to be released later this summer.

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May 8, 2012

The final G.I. Joe: Retaliation poster revealed – UPDATED w/ International!

Source: GeneralJoes.com

Thanks to ComingSoon.net we have a look at the last G.I. Joe: Retaliation theatrical poster. The poster takes some imagery from the previous character posters and combines it all into one pretty cool looking theatrical poster for the film.

Loving how this looks. Another poster to add to my growing “want list”! Check out the original post on ComingSoon.net, and also mirrored below. Thanks to the Twitter account for the General Geekery Podcast for the heads up!

UPDATE – It looks like there are also posters for Brazil and the UK as well, which I’ve included in the gallery below. The Brazil one is the split one that actually has Firefly in it. The other one with Lee Byung-Hun subtly included is for the UK.

So, poor Flint is 0 for 3 on Retaliation posters. What did he ever do to you, Paramount?!? Thanks to toycollector962 for the updated info.

GI Joe Retaliation USA

GI Joe: Retaliation Brazil

Isn't Jinx part of the Joes and not Cobra?

GI Joe: Retaliation UK

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May 9, 2012

New Mexican G.I. JOE: RETALIATION Poster Debuts

Paul Romano comicbookmovie.com

Another day, another G.I. Joe: Retaliation poster. Check out the latest international one sheet, featuring the main cast of the anticipated sequel.

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May 10, 2012

Steven Tyler:

Aerosmith's song for the 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' soundtrack is ideal

By News Desk Musicrooms.net

Steven Tyler believes Aerosmith's song for the 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' soundtrack is ideal because it mirrors the movie's themes.

The band's frontman thinks their track, 'Legendary Child', is the perfect song to accompany the forthcoming action movie - which stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Channing Tatum and Bruce Willis - because its theme of the group struggling to overcome adversity in the music industry is reflected in the film characters' onscreen battles.

He said: "'G.I. Joe' [is] about deep space and 'let's go fight the foe.' And then I thought about where the band came from, and going [into] the music business.

"If there ever... was a foe, the music business was. So to be successful you had to learn how to climb ladders, jump through hoops and live through burning houses."

Steven revealed the group spent 12 hours filming a video for 'Legendary Child', and he is excited about its release because guitarist Joe Perry was "on fire" while they were recording the song.

Speaking to ABC News Radio, he added: "It's gonna be slammin'. Joe was on fire. Wait, you'll see."

'G.I Joe: Retaliation' is to be released later this summer.

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May 10, 2012

An Absurdist Play Stirs a Dark Childhood Memory

Ellen Gamerman WSJ.com

To play the shambling vagabond in Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" now at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jonathan Pryce smudges dirt on his face and wears rumpled clothes that he insists won't be washed for the entire seven-week run.

"From what people say," he says, "I look as if I smell."

Mr. Pryce is attempting to make himself at home in the shabby underbelly of this 1960 absurdist drama as the manipulative Davies, an aging homeless man caught between Aston, a stranger who invites him to stay in his dump of an apartment in west London, and the man's menacing brother, Mick, who toys with him once he's living there.

The 64-year-old Welshman says his performance is shaped by his own family history. The play hinges on a monologue in which Aston reveals that he was damaged by electroconvulsive therapy while confined to a mental ward. Mr. Pryce says as an 11-year-old boy, he visited one such institution when his father was hospitalized for a temporary breakdown. He recalls seeing men strapped to their beds and now assumes that they, and his father, were receiving the same therapy.

"It's become more poignant for me," he says of the play's exploration of the shadows such experiences may cast on people years later.

Starting next week, the actor, who won a 1991 Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway musical "Miss Saigon," appears in U.S. movie theaters in the comedy, "Hysteria," about the invention of the vibrator as a treatment for women in 19th-century London. Next month, in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," he plays the U.S. president, his evil double—and sometimes both roles at once. "I act with myself," he says. "I have to say, I was great."

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May 11, 2012

Aerosmith To Debut New Single On 'American Idol'

Source: ultimate-guitar.com

Aerosmith will play their new single on the season finale of "American Idol", Joe Perry told Rolling Stone. On the May 23 edition of the series, the legendary rockers will perform "Legendary Child", which is both the lead single from their forthcoming album and their contribution to the "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" soundtrack.

Steven Tyler and pals shot a video for the single last week. The movie hits theaters on June 29.

As for Aerosmith’s still-untitled album, Perry said: "It’s really close. We’ve started to mix. We’ve mixed a couple of the songs already, but I guess this week we’re really kind of rolling into mix mode. We have a couple of tracks left to finish up, just to put some overdubs on, but we’re kind of going from the final, final recording tracks to mixing this week."

The album is due for a fall release, following Aerosmith’s summer tour with Cheap Trick, which begins June 16 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Thanks for the report to Bryan Wawzenek, Gibson.com.

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An unusual GI Joe study?

May 11, 2012

How Your Summer Movie Plans Reveal Your Shopping Habits

Source: mashable.com

Excited to see The Amazing Spider-Man this summer? You’re a prime target for Clorox and Prius ads. Actually more pumped for Star Trek 2? Microbreweries and Whole Foods would be wise to go after you.

That’s according to research from Mindset, a psychographic ad targeting technology acquired last year by Meebo. Mindset uses a proprietary test similar to the famous Myers-Briggs personality test, then combines that with secret sauce algorithms to correlate between people’s personal traits and their shopping habits.

Mindset surveyed 1,300 people, finding that those with different personalities are more likely to be jazzed about different upcoming summer blockbusters. The company extrapolated those results to match people’s movie preferences to their probable buying habits.

Below is some of what Mindset found. Decide which summer movie you’re most excited for, then see if the research checks out.

The Amazing Spider-Man, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

If these are your jam, you’re probably very optimistic, according to Mindset. That means you’re 70% more likely than average to value environmental sustainability when you buy, 52% more likely to enjoy romantic comedies and 31% more likely to place extreme value on a clean home. Who should advertise to you? Prius, Tide, Bounty and upcoming rom-coms, among others.

Rock of Ages

If you can’t wait to see this movie you’re probably an extrovert, Mindset says. As a consumer, that means you’re 69% more likely to list socializing with friends as a preferred activity, 56% more likely to enjoy shopping, 42% more likely to value premo hair products and 27% more likely to use teeth-whitening kits. Paul Mitchell, Crest and Bloomingdale’s are among the brands that might find success targeting you with ads.

Snow White & the Huntsman

Mindset says this movie is most popular among “highly creative” people. That means you’re likely to buy organic foods, shell out for premium products, love music and have a bold fashion sense. You’re also 27% more likely than average to upgrade your cell phone when a newer version comes out, and less likely than average to watch ESPN or drive a truck. Mac cosmetics, Burt’s Bees and Apple are companies that should target you.

The Dark Knight Rises, The Expendables 2

If you’re stoked for the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy or the second Expendables flick, Mindset says you’re likely a risk seeker. What does that say about your buying habits? You’re 38% more likely to use a prepaid debit card, 25% more likely to say you probably don’t save as much money as you should and 27% to value owning the latest tech products. Gadget companies would be wise to seek your dollar.

Star Trek 2

Excited for this? Then chances are you’re an “open-minded experientialist,” according to Mindset. This means you’re more than twice as likely than the average person to enjoy cultural events such as museums and concerts, 65% more likely to love music, and you probably place a premium on organic foods and custom beers. Whole Foods, microbreweries and music venues may find you an easy sell.

Do you think Mindset’s findings are pretty accurate, or bogus? How do they match up with your movie preferences? Let us know in the comments.

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May 11, 2012

Excellent G.I. Joe: Retaliation Cobra Commander image from Cobra Special Forces

Source: GeneralJoes.com

Social media continues to infect G.I. Joe: Retaliation, this time with the Cobra Special Forces on Facebook. They’ve been slowly releasing images of various Cobra Troopers and even Firefly, but this image might just top them all!

Here we see the immortal Cobra Commander standing menacingly in front of a Cobra symbol on the wall of his lair. A very malicious, very cool image.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation's Cobra Commander Looks Menacing

By: Russ Burlingame comicbook.com

The Cobra Special Forces Facebook page last night revealed a new look at Cobra Commander as he will appear in the upcoming G.I. Joe sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, due in theaters on June 29.

He looks much more…well, like Cobra Commander…than he did in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Given how much better the second film looks so far, can we just call a mulligan on the first one or does the fact that they share a continuity make that too difficult?

Formerly played by The Dark Knight Rises star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cobra Commander is now rumored to be played by Faran Tahir of Warehouse 13 fame. That won’t leave the Joes and their enemies completely without the support of some comic book stars, though; Adrienne Palicki, who played Wonder Woman in ABC’s aborted pilot, will star as Lady Jaye along with Bruce Willis (Red) as the original G.I. Joe, Ray Park (X-Men) as Snake Eyes and Dwayne Johnson, who is currently cast in a number of comics-related projects, as Roadblock.

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May 12, 2012

Byung-Hun Lee Discusses Storm Shadow's Resurrection In G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

Paul Romano comicbookmovie.com

The actor reveals that the upcoming G.I. Joe sequel doesn't offer a clear explanation for Storm Shadow's resurrection (though there will be a hint). He also reveals which side he'll be on in the film.

Over at Soompi, Korean actor Byung-Hun Lee (who plays Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe films) talks about the character's return in the upcoming sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation. In 2009's Rise Of Cobra, Storm Shadow died, so many wondered how the character's resurrection in the sequel would play out after it was confirmed that Lee would reprise the role in Retaliation. While not saying much, Lee teases what we can expect in the film's explanation of the resurrection. "In the film, there is no separate explanation. However, there is a hint as to how ‘Storm Shadow’ resurrects."

Additionally, the actor praises the character of Storm Shadow, while also revealing if he'll be an ally of the Joes or the Cobra army. "I really like the role of Storm Shadow. In order to act him out, I studied his character history and he was the most charming character of G.I. Joe. In the film, there is a division between the Cobra army and Joes, however Storm Shadow does not really belong to either group. I liked the fact that the character was a lonely fighter."

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May 14, 2012

New Promo Banners For THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, G.I. JOE RETALIATION, DJANGO UNCHAINED, And More feature At Cannes Film Festival

Check out some cool banners featured at the Cannes Film Festival showcasing some of the most anticipated films of this year, including The Amazing Spider-Man and G.I. Joe Retaliation...

WesleyGibson comicbookmovie.com

Earlier today, the guys over at Collider managed to snag and post some cool-looking banners for some of this year's most anticipated films including Spider-Man's latest outing, the latest installment of G.I. Joe, the upcoming remake of Total Recall, Quentin Tarantino's latest film Django Unchained, and last but not least, the next Tom Cruise film One Shot, based off of the popular book series written by Lee Child featuring the character Jack Reacher.

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Source: Nate

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May 16, 2012

International Korean Poster for G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Source: Nate