When it was announced that G.I. Joe: Retaliation had been bumped from its original June 29th release date to March 29, 2013, Paramount said that the reason was because the movie was being post-converted into 3D, but most of us knew better. It was simply too strange that the studio would pull one of their biggest blockbusters of the year one month before release. Now the truth has come out and it's not really about 3D at all: it's about the fear of Spider-Man.
THR has gotten the inside scoop on why Paramount decided to shift G.I. Joe: Retaliation to next winter and the reason is because the studio wasn't confident that the movie could compete with Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man. Set to be released on July 3rd, webhead would have only given G.I. Joe five days, at most. at the top of the box office, and many anticipate that the success of The Avengers will translate to greater success for all superhero movies, including our friendly neighborhood webslinger. Also helping out box office numbers next year will be the added 3D, which should pad Paramount's international numbers quite nicely.
But the other reason for the move is Mr. Channing Tatum. Watching the trailers for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, it's pretty clear that Tatum, who played Duke in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, bites the big one early in the film. With 21 Jump Street and The Vow performing as well as they did, however, the studio is thinking that killing Tatum off wasn't the best idea in the world. It's expected that in the next nine months Tatum will be brought in for re-shoots so that they can expand his part - which is a clean way of saying that he could be resurrected.
It originally looked like Paramount was going to have a huge 2012. They had release dates lined up for The Avengers, World War Z, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Star Trek 2 and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, but now none of those movies exist in their plans (though they are still getting a nice payday from Marvel and Disney). This has turned out to be a strange year for the folks over there.
