We all know studios lie so when Paramount suddenly yanked ‘G.I. Joe Retaliation‘ from the June schedule claiming it was to convert it to 3-D, everyone smirked and knew that just wasn’t quite the whole truth. Channing Tatum’s meteoric rise to stardom helped push their hand too.

Paramount definitely had mouths gaping wide when they pulled the Dwayne Johnson Bruce Willis action flick ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation‘ from the June schedule only weeks before, but it wasn’t so shocking when you think about it. As we reported, after the Peter Berg ‘Battleship’ box office fiasco and Marc Webb’s ‘The Amazing Spider-Man‘ tracking well plus looking good, it definitely made more sense. And Deadline went further that Channing Tatum’s sudden overnight stardom definitely has has the impact since he was killed of pretty quickly in the film which would only alienate some viewers. You barely even knew Tatum was in the film, but now that’s going to change for 2013.
As studios lie, Paramount will naturally say that this change up won’t affect the budget, but that’s a lot of crap. When you have a marketing plan in full swing (including Super Bowl ads) and merchandising that is a pretty big chunk of the budget. But when you scrap it all and will have to start all over again, that big chunk is squared, plus reshoots, plus converting to 3-D. At the end of the day ‘G.I. Retaliation’ could wind costing a good quarter of a million, even though they keep saying it’s just $125 million. You know Tatum’s agent will be pushing up his rate if they expand his role too or he could suddenly become a little ill and under the weather on his shooting days. You know the studio will probably respond since the story has picked up steam and then next year when Tatum’s face is all over the marketing and the film, they’ll hope no one remembers. The sad irony for next year would be if Tatum’s star suddenly flamed out just before the film hit…how would Paramount handle that?
The good news for Tatum’s fans is that they don’t have to choose which film to watch on June 29 now. It’s just ‘Magic Mike’ and I’m sure most of his fans would rather know that in this film his uniform comes off unlike in ‘G.I. Joe Retaliation’.













