Yesterday Jon Chu talked about how the Cobra Commander for
G.I. Joe Retaliation wasn't the same as the first film
Rise Of Cobra. Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura echoed those thoughts when he talked with
Moviefon.
"No", said Di Bonaventura,
"Different guy. Someone else took over, yes.". Part of the reason that Cobra looked the way he did in the first film was that the Director Stephan Sommers thought he looked too much like he was in the Klu Klux Klan. A point that Di Bonaventura agrees with. When asked why they didn't use the version of the Commander that will appear in Retaliation he said production was rushed one the first film and there wasn't enough time to make those kinds of decisions.
" Well, you know what. The first one suffered from one thing a lot: which was we had no time to make it. They green lit the movie and we were shooting ten weeks later. That's insane. In this movie we were designing things seven months before we shot. So when you have no time to do anything, your first design comes through. Literally, Storm Shadow's costume, we never saw it until it showed up on set," he said. He also said that Sommers wasn't a fan of G.I. Joe growing up unlike Jon Chu and that the first film served its purpose of starting the franchise up.
Di Bonaventura also addressed how he though they could get fans back after being let down by the first film saying,
"Well, it's pretty evenly split. There are some people who feel as strongly (that it was bad) and there are some who feel like, 'Well, it wasn't really that, but I enjoyed it.' Look, you learn a lot the first time out. Did it not take itself seriously enough? Was that part of the problem? Because, for me, these movies are about tone." He also said that its difficult to please every JOE fan because some people grew up with the serious comic books where other grew up with the light hearted cartoon. He went on to praise Jon Chu for knowing the source material and doesn't think fans will be disappointed this time around.
To see the full interview where Di Bonaventure talks about continuing instead of rebooting click
HERE. Make sure to check back with CBM to catch the very latest on G.I. Joe News.