Snake Eyes Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For a guy who allegedly got fired from his latest film, Stephen Sommers shows few signs that he's letting the rumor mill wear him down. "The guys who have been hammering me for the last year have really turned around in the last couple of weeks when they started seeing the movie," Sommers beamed during an interview about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. "I'm pretty happy."

Admittedly, Sommers' commercial track record is almost inversely proportionate to his critical one, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars with the Mummy movies and Van Helsing despite reviews that were, to say the least, often unkind. But speaking to the director via telephone about G.I. Joe, Sommers indicated that he has accepted – if not championed – his spot among Hollywood's purveyors of pure spectacle. "They love to hate the guys who make the movies that they love," he said of the "internet movie haters" calling for his head.

Cinematical spoke to Sommers about his participation in G.I. Joe, which followers of the film know has been highly-contested in press reports as the film moved towards its opening day, August 7. In addition to clarifying his employment status at the helm of the film, he discussed the development of the film's iconic conflict between G.I. Joe and Cobra, reflected on what interests him as a director and storyteller, and perhaps most importantly, explained why some of the costumes were changed en route to the silver screen.

Cinematical: When you started working on G.I. Joe, what did you feel like was essential to preserve about the source material, and what did you know that by necessity would have to change when you adapted and updated it for live-action?

While G.I. Joe certainly isn't the first movie to use Slurpee straws as a marketing tool, when you take into consideration all the bad buzz that's been following the flick around for the past several months, it's almost as if Paramount handed this joke to us all on a silver platter. Yes, those of you lucky enough to suck down your slurpee through one of these special straws will get the chance to own a limited edition G.I. Joe straw figure, complete with its own easy-to-make-fun-of awkward pose. There's four all together, and fans will get to choose from Snake Eyes, Duke, Storm Shadow and the Baroness. I actually think the Snake Eyes one is pretty cool (though Snake Eyes is always cool), but I honestly have no idea what's going on with the other characters. I mean, Duke looks like he's either praying or attempting to squeeze one out. You tell me ...

One imagines you'll be able to find these straws at your local 7-Eleven once we inch closer to the film's August 7 release date. Check out larger images of all four characters below.



[via Topless Robot]

I do believe Ray Park is the first G.I. Joe actor to speak on the new movie -- which fits, as he's the first character the studio allowed us to see. Park gave a big interview to Geekscape! where he discussed Joe, Snake Eyes, Iron Fist, and the finer points of stunts and martial arts.

Park was determined to snag the role of Snake Eyes for himself. "One of the reasons I always wanted to play Snake Eyes is because I played as him when I was a kid. Star Wars fans and the fans I've met at conventions have said 'You'd be the best Snake Eyes ever if they did a GI Joe movie!' So when I heard they were actually going to do it I did everything possible to try and get in a meeting or try and get an audition cause I wanted to do it for myself, I wanted to do it for the fans and I wanted to do it for my cousins and all my nephews and my kids. It's great to be here and to be able to tell those stories."