Moviefone had the opportunity to sit and chat with G.I. Joe: Retaliation director
Jon Chu (Pictured Right) and producer
Lorenzo di Bonaventura at the American International Toy Fair about the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the sequel to Rise of Cobra starring Bruce Willis and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
The following are some of the comments by Chu and di Bonaventura during the course of the interview. I take them as more of little spoilers...
Chu comments that his favorite characters are Grunt and Firefly but they do a different take on Firefly. He's not exactly the "Firefly" Firefly that we know. But he's a force to be reckoned with. He's a bad-ass and he still kicks some serious ass. di Bonaventura revealed that Grunt only has a small part in the movie.
di Bonaventura didn't want the sequel as a reboot but more of a evolution. They don't want to get rid of everyone from the first movie just to add to the second movie.
"There are characters from the first one: Jonathan Pryce is back, Lee Byung-hun is back... Zartan and Snake Eyes. So you've got four characters." "Picking which characters to add to the movie was an issue and there are a few other Joe surprises. Some names of enterprises that Joe fans will recognize and non-Joe fans will have no idea of. There are quite a few Easter eggs."
Channing Tatum is returning...
Cobra Commander was an issue but they couldn't lose Cobra Commander even without Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the man under the mask. Chu has made Cobra Commander as he has always wanted:
"a bad-ass villain. He's one of the most iconic villains ever." Cobra Commander has to look like Cobra Commander so Chu made sure to ditch the hood and go with the silver-mask and helmet.
di Bonaventura commented that the reason why they showed the hooded Cobra Commander in the first movie because they had no time to make the silver-mask and helmet.
"The movie was green lit and filming started ten weeks later. In this movie we were designing things seven months before we shot. Storm Shadow's costume, we never saw it until it showed up on set."
When questioned about Destro? Chu commented,
"We may see a glimpse of Destro." di Bonaventura made the remark that Destro will be back in one way or another.
Chu wanted this movie to have the old-Marvel comics feeling and does a homage to the issue, "Silent Interlude" and can't wait for the fans to see what they do with that.
The first thing Chu made sure when he took over as director was Cobra Commander has to look like Cobra Commander, Snake Eyes loses the lips, no laser guns and real stunts. No shooting on green screen and making it all fake.
'...able to see people as real human beings. Flawed human beings that get hurt and do get scratched up. And every time they make a kill they scratch little thing on there -- and you see that throughout the movie.'
