Thursday morning at Comic Con Hasbro showed up with three members of the team making their upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra live action movie. In attendance to win a fairly lethargic bunch of fans (at least by Con standards) over were producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, writer Stuart Beattie, and G.I. Joe creator Larry Hama. They showed no hesitation in talking about the film in detail, and even dropped plot details on the eager Joe-fanboy audience. Presented in quick hit format, here’s what they had to say:
On The Challenges Of Turning the GI Joe Universe into a movie:
There was so much material they couldn’t decide how to keep as many characters as possible and still do them justice. So they decided to attack the film from the character point of view. Because of that, there is no single story to carry you through the movie. There is a bad guy plot throughout, but no single storyline. Instead, they have several different storylines. For example there’s the relationship between Duke and Baroness, between Scarlett and Ripcord, between Stormshadow and Snake Eyes. To get to all the characters, they’ll have to wait for the sequel.
On Staying Faithful To Source Material:
They wanted to give Snake Eyes a single line in the film, but Larry Hama made absolutely certain that they didn’t have Snake Eyes talking. They chose to make the team an international force instead of an American force as it has been traditionally because they think it better reflects the modern realities of fighting terrorism, which is a global threat.
On Being Released In August:
An August release date was chosen to avoid competing with Transformers 2, which is also a Hasbro property.
Plot And Character Details:
- The film is an origin story for Cobra.
- Instead of having a bunch of 4 minute action sequences, the film will only contain 4 total action sequences, but those action sequences will be more than 10 minutes long. They describe these action sequences as “staggeringly huge” a “gigantic experience.
- Duke and Ripcord are our window into the world of GI Joe in the film. They do not start the movie as Joes, and the movie follows them as they become part of the team.
- Dennis Quaid has a significant role as Hawk. Extra scenes (10-15) were written specifically to give him more time.
- The black costumes we’ve seen the characters in are their battle armor. They have other looks.
- Scarlett is written and played as super smart and utterly oblivious to her sex appeal.
- Marlon Wayans was told to be funny as Ripcord, but also really serious. He was hired primarily because of the great performance they saw him give in Requiem for a Dream.
- Heavy Duty is written and played to be “tough as nails”. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, the actor playing him, kept pushing them to give him bigger guns and bigger moments. Heavy Duty was selected to be in the film instead of Roadblock, simply because he appealed more to the film’s writer Stuart Beattie.
- Destro starts the movie as the lead villain, and is the mastermind of what happens.
- Baroness: Sienna Miller plays a bad girl with torn loyalties.
- In the film, Duke and Baroness were once engaged. Duke left her at the altar and as a result Baroness has a lot of anger towards Duke.
- There is as “love triangle” between Ripcord, Scarlett, and Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes has a way of showing up whenever Ripcord tries to make his move.
- The film will explore the history between Snake Eyes and Stormshadow. We’ll see them as 10 year old kids meeting for the first time, then examine what it was that drove them apart.
- Film was shot on location all around the globe in places like Paris, Kirkastan, Washington D.C., the Sahara Desert, and the Arctic.
- G.I. Joe creator Larry Hama plays the head of NATO in the film.
For all of our criminally complete 2008 San Diego Comic Con coverage go here.
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July 26th, 2008 at 03:49
Why does there have to be any love in a war movie?