'G.I. Joe' Director Fired? Biggest Stinker of 2009? Do Tell!

by Erik Davis Jun 11th 2009 // 12:32PM

Filed under: Action, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek



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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Tags: cinematical, g.i. joe, g.i. joe director fired, G.i.Joe, G.i.JoeDirectorFired, stephen sommers, StephenSommers, the rise of cobra, TheRiseOfCobra

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