At least it isn’t F. Gary Gray; Heat Vision has reported that John Chu, who recently directe” Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, has begun negotiations to helm the GI Joe sequel which has the clever early moniker of GI Joe 2. Chu is also behind the second and third Step Up movies, so he’s got the experience to handle a big-budget action movie. I hope that read as sarcastically as I meant it to be.
As for the casting, the article also talks about how the main roles may be recast, specifically Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s Cobra Commander and Sienna Miller‘s Baroness. Levitt would be easy to replace since his character is now behind a mask after the events of the first film (spoiler I guess?) and you couldn’t even tell it was him half the time in the original anyway. Miller…well, they don’t really need her character I think. There’s got to be someone else they can stick into that role…or the people behind the movie can, you know, be creative and try to come up with someone original. That may be too much work for them though. I also assume that the lesser of the cast most likely signed on for sequels, since no movie gets made nowadays without franchise potential. And for those of you who had their breaths held, you can exhale; Channing Tatum will most likely be back in the role of Duke. Dodged a bullet there.
Okay, as pissy as that whole news article sounded I actually liked the first GI Joe. It was dumb and loud, but for some reason, I didn’t regret watching it. I’m all for a sequel, but Chu just strikes me as an odd choice to take over the franchise. I don’t know, maybe I expected someone who hasn’t been a good portion of his career on pop stars and dance moves to be the new choice. Whatever, I’m in any way. Bonus points if it ends in a dance battle.