just saw a tweet from Dwayne Johnson--
Commitment to make GI JOE a massive world event just got bigger. New release 3/29/13. Rock + Ass kickins + 3D = #AwwwwSh*t
http://tinyurl.com/8x5y8hfOstensibly this is to prepare the movie for 3-D conversion as well as doing more of a unified global push for marketing purposes.
I can't help but to think that the modest U.S. box office so far for
Battleship had something to do with this. I believe Mr. Reggie already posted an article about studio execs hitting the panic button in the aftermath of this and
John Carter.
I haven't seen
Battleship yet but I plan to. I was also planning to go see
Retaliation when it came out in June. Does 3-D conversion really take
that long?
This will be nearly a year-long delay from its original release. Presumably, the film is/was already at the tail-end of final editing. I know that plenty of movies do reshoots before a final cut, but storywise, I'm not sure what all could be done at this point except to shoot an entirely new film's worth of footage. Also, timing-wise, late March puts the film into the same, uh, lane as
John Carter was this year. Not quite the dead of winter, but definitely not summer, kids are still in school.
The producers should take a cue from The Avengers: I hope that they will add some new characters: [Joes] Alpine, Quick Kick, Stalker, Zap, Doc, Cover Girl.. [Cobra] Crimson Twins, Firefly, Dreadnoks.
If the film can be extended to 2.5 hours—have more character development moments, more international locations for the plot—and the climax leads directly into a part 3, that could be a way to take advantage of the extended wait time.