GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was a mixed bag of big action set pieces that hardly resembled The Real America Hero brand it was supposed to be based upon. Thanks to a one-two punch of domestic and international box office business it eclipsed $300 million in ticket sales which has green lit a sequel. Though it might not be the sequel you expect.
Rachel Nichols, who played Scarlett in Rise of Cobra, dropped a bombshell about GI Joe 2 on Twitter. In her words, “GI JOE 2 News Flash: The only characters to return in the JON CHU directed sequel will be SNAKE EYES, STORM SHADOW, and DUKE.”
If she’s correct then Cobra Commander, Destro, Zartan, Baroness, Rip Cord, Scarlett, Heavy Duty, Hawk and Breaker are all out. That’s almost the entire first film’s cast with Channing Tatum, Ray Park and Lee Byung-hun as the only returning cast members.
The G.I. Joe universe is ripe with colorful characters and some like Breaker and Heavy Duty were inconsequential to Rise of Cobra. The heart and soul of Cobra is Cobra Commander and Destro. That’s why the first film was called The Rise of Cobra, to introduce those characters and their motivations so we could see them in full “Cobra mode” in the sequel. Instead we appear to be getting all new villains (Serpentor? Major Bludd? Crimson Guard?) joining Storm Shadow who was all-but-killed by Snake Eyes in the arctic water.
John Chu coming on board to direct is the first sign that Paramount is approaching GI Joe 2 with a tight wallet. Cutting out almost all the signature characters from the sequel is the second. Sadly whoever they cast to fill the new roles will be the third.
Anticipation for GI Joe 2 was running relatively high when it was confirmed that Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick of Zombieland fame were writing the story and screenplay. They spoke highly of returning to the GI Joe of the 1980s in their sequel and fixing the mistakes of the original. Paramount now has to consider launching some damage control before negativity carries GI Joe 2 into a premature grave.
