G.I. Joe Rise Of Cobra possibly in huge trouble

[S.A.A.D.]

http://www.donmurphy.net/board/showthread.php?t=31038


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.

 

[dudeman25]

sorry, beat you to the punch by 5 minutes, LOL

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=325487

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

This thread has a better title.

Anyways, however hired Sommers should be fired.

whoever greenlighted the script should be fired.

in fact fire everyone involved in the abomination.

 

[BlackLantern]

I am not hopeful

it might be a little better than The Mummy 3

maybe

 

[The Guard]

First,

A more faithful movie to the source would mean what, exactly, if the movie once filmed is so bad that it has to be rescued in the editing room?

Second, GI JOE is in huge trouble in what sense? That it might not be good? Hell, fans have been *****ing about that for months. That's nothing new, and has always been a possibility.

It'd have to be a REALLY bad movie to have the director be fired, and then rehired, and that just seems doubtful.

And I very much doubt they would not release the film at all. This movie had a budget of something like $170 million.

Also, I don't recall hearing anything about any test screenings. You'd think something like that would have leaked by now.

 

[Timstuff]

If I were a member at that board, I'd have written this:

"Link, or it didn't happen."

Seriously, the fact that no-one else over there seemed to question the "scoop" of a person who makes such a big claim without even providing a verifiable source is insane. But then again, I don't visit armpit websites like that very often so I don't know what their standards are.

 

[craigdbfan]

That explanation makes perfect sense. No wonder it looks like such a stinky turd.

This movie is going to bomb hard.

First Showing says the details seem to check out and Aceshowbiz posted it as well.

As First Showing mentioned this sucks for Paramount who has been delivering good movies lately and their upcoming "Shutter Island" looks great.

The fact that "C.G.I.:Accelerators: Rise of the Turd" test screening wherein this film tested the lowest score ever from an audience in the history of Paramount says a whole lot about the quality of this film. Now they are trying to edit this thing to the "tolerable" stage (which I doubt is possible, you can cover up a piece of fecal matter all you want but the stench will still be as potent).

What a waste of $170 million.

 

[BlackLantern]

as for the "suits", from what Ive heard its ONE sequence in the movie and its part of a side story about what gets the job done...the man or the equipment

people seem to be blowing that part way out of proportion

 

[Antrax255]

Makes since sad for Paramount those suits are really really unneeded.

 

[BlackLantern]

Makes since sad for Paramount those suits are really really unneeded.

that's the point...I don't understand how people don't get it....it's this whole conflict between man and technology

what's wrong with exploring that concept in a military themed movie??

 

[Ace of Knaves]

as for the "suits", from what Ive heard its ONE sequence in the movie and its part of a side story about what gets the job done...the man or the equipment

people seem to be blowing that part way out of proportion

That sounds pretty interesting, actually.

 

[Antrax255]

that's the point...I don't understand how people don't get it....it's this whole conflict between man and technology

what's wrong with exploring that concept in a military themed movie??

This barely looks like a military theme movie its too out there they should have kept it in the lines of mission impossible with a mix of jarhead.

 

[Timstuff]

The "spam in a can" dilemma as Chuck Yeager called it has been going on for ages. What's the point of having a highly trained soldier if he's essentially going to be a passenger in a piece of fancy automated tech? It IS a problem, and from what we've heard it's a dilemma that the movie uses the Delta suits to illustrate, not one that it ignores. I highly doubt this claim being made about the movie's test screenings is legitimate.

That explanation makes perfect sense. No wonder it looks like such a stinky turd.

This movie is going to bomb hard.

First Showing says the details seem to check out and Aceshowbiz posted it as well.

They used the original message board post as a source. It confirms two things: Jack and sh**, and Jack just left down. The message board poster is just doing typical internet troll crap, so it doesn't mean anything if someone else passes it along.

 

[Darthkush]

Latino review has up a similar story. They say their sources say it's true but they still think the movie might be entertaining anyway.

 

[BlackLantern]

no one here is saying that this film will be a magnificent triumph of cinema, but it might be entertaining and worth a matinee

 

[zeptron]

Latino review has up a similar story. They say their sources say it's true but they still think the movie might be entertaining anyway.

That one also uses that message board's post as a source.

EDIT: I just went back there and it looks like the thread about this got deleted.

 

[Shadow-Guardian]

This is ridiculous. It can't be that bad. Dragonball: Evolution was the worst movie I've seen in the past 10 years, but you didn't hear ANYTHING like this about it.

 

[BlackLantern]

This is ridiculous. It can't be that bad. Dragonball: Evolution was the worst movie I've seen in the past 10 years, but you didn't hear ANYTHING like this about it.

I think that was becaused no one really cared about DragonBall so it kinda crawled into the corner and died quietly

GI Joe is on a different level

 

[dark_b]

wooow thats really bad if this is all true. they really went a little over the top even for a summer movie.

 

[dark_b]

This is ridiculous. It can't be that bad. Dragonball: Evolution was the worst movie I've seen in the past 10 years, but you didn't hear ANYTHING like this about it.

GI joe is mroe promoted then DB. plus GIjoe will be realesed in the summer where peoplenoticed those movies. and its a big budget movie.

DB was an april movie with a budget of 45 millions.

 

[The Guard]

The amount of people who want this movie to fail, who clearly have this hatred invested in it that is based on their assumptions about this project (many of which are just not true) is baffling. Well, not baffling. Troubling.

Are we really supposed to believe that an action/CGI movie tested the lowest of ANY film in the history of Paramount? That's a hard one to swallow.

as for the "suits", from what Ive heard its ONE sequence in the movie and its part of a side story about what gets the job done...the man or the equipment

people seem to be blowing that part way out of proportion

Indeed.

And I'm sorry...cheesy or not, the sequence the suits ARE in doesn't look that bad.

This barely looks like a military theme movie its too out there they should have kept it in the lines of mission impossible with a mix of jarhead.

What about this doesn't make you think it's "military themed"? Do you have any idea what this movie is about, or what's in it? Or are you one of those people who, despite being told otherwise, thinks it's two hours of Accelerator Suit puns?

I think that was becaused no one really cared about DragonBall so it kinda crawled into the corner and died quietly

GI Joe is on a different level

I don't see too many caring about GI JOE. Sad, but true.

 

[Figs]

no one here is saying that this film will be a magnificent triumph of cinema, but it might be entertaining and worth a matinee

That's what I'm expecting.

I'm mainly going to see Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow fight it out and see how badly they might have ****ed up Cobra Commander.

 

[bunk]

I have hard time believing this movie will be worse than any of Sommers' other movies. VAN HELSING is a piece of crap and it still didn't bomb. G.I. JOE will at least do better than that.

 

[The Guard]

Supposedly an update:

**UPDATE**

Latinoreview wanted to get to the bottom of this whole mess so we spoke directly with Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura about this whole firing post and here's what he had to say:

Lorenzo: It's very unfair to Steve, it's completely untrue he was never asked to leave or been fired or any of that. That’s ridiculous. The movie tested very well.

I hear it tested as good as the first Transformers.

Lorenzo: Well listen, we tested very well and I don’t compare the movies because they are different movies, but you know I think its really destructive for a director…It hurts a guy's career when people go around talking about that he was fired or he didn’t do a good job and truth is he did a really good job. People are going to enjoy the movie and the test audiences enjoyed the movie.

He did a very good job the movie tested well and it couldn’t be more false that the studio in anyway did anything negatively to Steve.

So what really happened in the editing room?

Lorenzo: Nothing that doesn’t happen on every other movie, which is that you constantly work and work and work and you make it better and better. We had a delay on visual effects so we waited a long time to finish the movie but that’s the only thing. I don’t really know why that would be interpreting it negatively but I guess it was.

In regards to the testing the film has had so far:

Lorenzo: Everybody was happy, the studio was happy, the filmmakers were happy, the audience was happy with the movie. We had three test screenings, three different times and tested it and each time it just got better and better. We started off in a good place and we ended up in even in a better place, which is what you hope on a film from testing it.

So there you go. Straight from Lorenzo as he debunks the firing story. Like I said, I've heard from my sources that the film was tracking well. We've stuck up for this film from the get go. Why? Because we're fans of G.I. Joe. And I've mentioned on Twitter and here numerous times that I think the movie looks kick ass.

All know is fans want a good G.I. Joe movie despite the Hollywood politics. We'll find out when it hits theaters on August 7th.

 

[BlackLantern]

I think, for any big film, lots of yelling and swearing happen in the editing room....names are called, your mothers honor is impuned, and all that