Lorenzo di Bonaventura debunks previous rumors that 'G.I. Joe 2' was reshot to give more portion to Tatum, insisting, 'That is a complete rumor.'
- Jan 14, 2013
AceShowbiz - After "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" was all of a sudden moved from its original June 29, 2012 release date to March 29 this year, some people began speculating about the reason behind the abrupt rescheduling. Back in May last year, Deadline shared the words that the film was reshot to give Channing Tatum bigger part since he became a rising star this past year.
However, clarifying the old rumor, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura insisted that the delay was not made for the sake of Tatum's role. He claimed that the "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra" would not feature more scenes involving the "Magic Mike" hunk, just like some people had been speculating before.
"No, it's not," di Bonaventura told Crave Online in a recent interview. "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."
The producer stated that the reshot version of "G.I. Joe 2" would not be too different from the original version. "It's not much different," he said. "Literally, we shot for three extra days. We just added sort of explanation in what we did afterwards," he added without detailing which part that had been reshot for the final cut.
Words ran rampant last year that the movie was postponed due to a miscalculated plot related to Tatum's Duke. The actor was relatively unknown when he starred in the first "G.I. Joe". However, since his back-to-back successes in both "The Vow" and "21 Jump Street", Paramount toppers reportedly realized "what a complete miscalculation it was to kill off Channing Tatum in the sequel."
An insider went on revealing that "the 3D is an excuse as to not reveal the Tatum of it all." The source elaborated, "In our first screening of the film the reaction from audiences was good but with 2 big concerns: 1) They didn't like the fact that Channing and The Rock really didn't have any time to develop a friendship before Channing died, and 2) Why wasn't it going to be in 3D?"
"We went back and shot another week with Channing to develop more of his story with The Rock, which made the film play much better," said the same source to Deadline. "But we didn't have the time to be in 3D."
Parmount shocked many people with its decision to push back "G.I. Joe 2" last year since the studio massively promoted the sequel, including making a Super Bowl ad earlier last year. The upcoming film will bring back Tatum, Ray Park and Lee Byung-hun as Duke, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow respectively.
They will be joined by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Roadblock, Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye, Elodie Yung as Jinx, and Bruce Willis as General Joseph Colton.
