'G.I. Joe' Director Fired? Biggest Stinker of 2009? Do Tell!
Filed under: Action, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek
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It's no secret around these parts that G.I. Joe is -- how shall we say ... the one-legged monkey of this summer's crop of movies. Already the butt of lots of jokes online and off, G.I. Joe and its small amount of marketing materials (including a trailer or two and 578 character posters) haven't exactly impressed more than four people (and some suggest those four people don't even really exist). Now I really hate to crap on a film before it hits theaters because a lot of people worked hard to make the thing and a whole ton of money was spent in the process, but the news just doesn't seem to get better when it comes to the live-action G.I. Joe adaptation no one really asked for.
The latest comes from a message board poster over at producer (and Cinematical's number one fan) Don Murphy's site. Latino Review found the post, which goes into lots of detail regarding G.I. Joe director Stephen Sommers and how he was canned and replaced with a "fixer" director after the film tested poorly. Normally a message board poster wouldn't be the greatest source for a story like this, but LR did some checking with people and say it's the truth. Of course Paramount will try to deny there's anything going on here (which kinda reminds me of all the hoopla surrounding Lexi Alexander on Punisher: War Zone), but if it is indeed true, then it kinda looks like Cobra is going to fall before they get to rise.
But give it two years for the bad taste to go away, and I'm sure someone will try to reboot the franchise. Read the detailed message board post after the jump. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra hits theaters on August 7.
UPDATE: Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura spoke to Latino Review and claims there's no truth whatsoever to this story. Read his response over here.
So the story goes like this-
after a test screening wherein the film tested the lowest score ever from an audience in the history of Paramount, the executive who pushed for the movie Brad Weston had Stephen Sommers, the super hack director of the film fired. Removed. Locked out of the editing room.
Stuart Baird, a renowned "fixer" editor was brought it to try to see if it could be made releasable. Meanwhile producer Lorenzo whose turkey IMAGINE THAT explodes this weekend as the new bomb in theatres (also championed by Weston) was told his services were no longer needed on the film either.
Sommers was then forced by his William Morris agents to pretend that he was working on Tarzan over at Warner Brothers doing design work, even though that film doesn't even have a good script yet. When word of the firing started to be whispered about in Hollywood, Sommers was summoned back to the editing room- but only to save appearances, Baird is still editing the movie with studio input.
Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who turned down other offers from the property to go with the script that was rushed in 8 weeks by Stuart Beattie because of the writer's strike is frantic that this will destroy the brand and is distancing himself from the pending catastophe.
NONE of this needed to happen, except someone who did not know the mythology, Lorenzo was in charge of the film and never contradicted Sommers on anything. Lorenzo, so you know, was Chairman of Warners and had GI JOE under option there (not as a producer) for SEVEN years and he refused to greenlight the film, stating that because he gre up in Italy he had no knowledge of it. If you google enough, at one point you will see he wanted the film to be about an action hero named MANN (Action Man, get it) and he clearly had no clue what the GI Joe world really was.
And the hapless hack Sommers? Where did he come from? The confused Jon Fogelman at William Morris, who signed Hasbro away from CAA, had to find a director in a hurry for his new clients and gave him the only guy who he repped who would do it. A sad end to what COULD have been a great franchise. Acceleration suits indeed.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-11-2009 @ 1:14PM
Kurt said...
This... is... awesome...
I'm thinking this deserves a midnight screening with some rum to sweeten my cherry coke. Who's with me?
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6-11-2009 @ 2:21PM
Dan said...
I like your style, brother.
6-11-2009 @ 1:16PM
Eric said...
It does not surprise me this film looks like shit.
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6-11-2009 @ 1:18PM
Astin said...
You know, other than the accelerator suits, the trailer gave me some hope for the movie. It felt a lot like the 80's cartoon. Team of Joes, Cobra doing something ridiculously impossible with wacky technology, and lots of stuff blowing up and being shot at. Hell, it felt like more a GI Joe movie than Transformers feels like a Transformers movie.
But the suits were dumb, and I chalked it up to an obvious marketing trick - you get to include faceless guys with the vehicles, just like they did when I was a kid.
Now, granted, GI Joe goes WAY further back than that, but the target audience for the movie is obviously the guys who grew up on the cartoon. And let's be honest here, it wasn't like it was any less fluffy or ridiculous than anything else on after school.
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6-11-2009 @ 1:34PM
Kurt said...
The trailer gave me hope, too, a few stupid-looking bits aside. But it looked like mindless action, and I can enjoy that. Hell, I don't even have a problem with the "suits", per se.
I think it was the MTV Movie Awards clip that put me off to it. That was where it crossed the line from fun-but-stupid to painfully-stupid.
Gah.
6-11-2009 @ 1:38PM
TorontoKev said...
Remember how in the 80's the Transformer (animated) film rocked...
...and GI Joe thought, "We can do that!"
Turned out never to see the light of day or rather the darkness of a cinema, rather becoming a double episode of the long-running show.
LIke Shirley Basey said - a little bit of history repeating.
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6-11-2009 @ 2:15PM
Jason Lawless said...
As soon as I heard they were doing this movie I said - they are going to royally F IT UP! Please don't. I was so excited about Transformers and then I saw it. They have really messed with the mythology it seems from the little bit they have released so far.
We can deal with changes in looks etc but don't mess with the mythology. All we wanted was Optimus to be the leader that we needed and say one simple line but they couldn't even get that right.
This movie should be a very tight military action thriller with tons of explosions and great characters not an overblown cheap Wanted knockoff which in itself was already bottom of the barrel.
Why do they not get it? It's simple - stay true to the mythology or don't even try. Harry Potter is a success as it stays pretty close to the source material for instance.
There are so many Joe stories that could have been adapted straight from the comics an make an amazing story - the snake eyes stuff for instance is mind blowing and who doesn't like ninjas.
Think Bourne/ Saving Private Ryan with more exotic tech and outlandish action.
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6-11-2009 @ 2:09PM
pnut166 said...
My biggest gripe is the attire. Why do ALL hero teams now have to wear matching black leather??? WTF is that?? It started with the xmen, and it pissed me off then. Why couldn`t they give the Joes their service branch- appropriate uniforms??? That`s what gave them all a unique identity, thus making them a unique team. That one miscalculation, even though it seems small on the surface, has doomed this movie into generic crap.
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6-11-2009 @ 4:30PM
Jawmuncher said...
I am completely with you dude.
The mech suit stuff is really lame.
What happended to all there iconic costumes?
Hell if they had such a huge problem with super soldiers they should have just done some super serum excuse.
That would have been way better.
The suit makes them all the same and makes them lose some of there charm. All they have now is there personalities
6-11-2009 @ 2:46PM
mel said...
I think the one thing that will have people scratching their heads would be "Why is the Doctor evil now?" Of course, Christopher Eccleston (who I think will be excellent as a bad guy for this), hasn't been the Doctor for a few years now, but there will be one or two, so I hope they're ready for it.
As far as the movie - I'll have to see it before I can say it'll be good or not. For "G.I. Joe" it looks promising, but I said that about other movies made from shows that did flop.
I will agree on one other thing - they need individuality for characters and stop with the matching costumes.
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6-11-2009 @ 3:07PM
vegimorph said...
no offense but this article is a bit harsh. I like Stephen Sommers' work. I mean he gave us the first Mummy after all. Plus, a lot of pressure has most likely been put on him because its an adaptation of an already popular franchise. I know no fans want to see it done badly but you can't exactly get everything you want.
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6-11-2009 @ 3:41PM
ghonious said...
i know for a fact me or my friends will not pay a dime to see this train-wreck. the decision to make them all black leather bsdms was totally perverted, only some Italian with no sense would come up with that. Speaking of which, here's a convo I had with Lorenzo after I showed traditional renderings of the G.I Joe characters.
"No! no! no! I said black leather! All of the Joe's must wear it!"
"But the whole franchise rests on kids relating with the jobs these characters perform and the fact that some of them are normal, remind them of their dad's or brothers. Only snakeeyes reps a sort of leather look because he is stealth and..."
"No! No! No! I own this option and i know what will sell!"
"No you don't. GI JOE is about growing up and particularly it should be directed at kids, not at fetish goths - you are missing the point."
"No I'm not. This movie will do very well on blu-ray"
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6-11-2009 @ 4:25PM
chris said...
as soon as they took out the rea american hero part and made it a team of people from all over the world just because they think it would not make money in other countrys because of ani't american feelings i was done with this movie.they did the same thing to superman when they took out the and the american way line out.
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6-11-2009 @ 4:49PM
ghonious said...
New name for this movie, G.I Joe: The unreal European Metrosexuals (with a flare for bondage outfits)
6-13-2009 @ 2:19AM
YouFaceTheTick said...
Say what you will Sienna miller looks devastatingly beautiful in the trailer. Movie looks horrid.
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