According to Deadline.com, there was a recent report on Monday that The Rock [Dwayne Johnson] will be joining the cast of the sequel sci-fi action movie, titled G.I. JOE: Retaliation. This movie was initially called Cobra Strikes.
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From www.deadline.com, June 6th:
After seeing his stock rise from starring in Fast Five, Dwayne Johnson is in talks to join another sequel. I'm told Johnson is in discussions with Paramount to join G.I. Joe: Cobra Strikes. That's the overhauled sequel that'll be directed by Jon M. Chu, who helmed Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Johnson's role is a character named Roadblock. I'm also hearing that Channing Tatum is a good bet to return. The picture has become an important one for Paramount, which will have to scratch the Star Trek sequel from its summer 2012 schedule and will likely put this film in its place. After Johnson helped boost The Fast and the Furious franchise (he's also in talks to be part of the sixth film in that franchise), Paramount hopes he can help here as well.
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CHECK OUT THE LATEST MOVIE TRAILER FOR G.I.JOE 2 RETALIATION BELOW!
All right, so we know that The Rock is up for the role of Roadblock, the heavy machine gunner and cook. This character was a cousin of Heavy Duty, another tough black guy from the original cartoon series. Heavy Duty was in the first G.I. JOE film and he was played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: a buff intrepid guy with a Nigerian heritage, who has a cool British accent. Channing Tatum is expected to return as the heroic team leader Duke, but villains Joseph Gordon-Levitt [Cobra Commander] and Sienna Miller [who played the role of Baroness] are unlikely to return at this juncture. This almost makes me suspect that this movie will be a complete reboot of the original series.
EDIT: Its been rumored that French actress Elodie Yung has also joined the cast of the sequel, and she'll be playing the role of Jinx, a female ninja with the JOEs.
SECOND EDIT made on 06/29/2011:
According to HeatVision.com, Rapper RZA and D.J. Contra have both joined the cast of the new G.I.JOE flick. RZA [known publicly as the leader of the classic East Coast rap group called the Wu-Tang Clan], will be playing the role of the Blind Master: the blind martial arts mentor of Snake-Eyes and Jinx. And D.J. Contra will play the role of Flint, the beret-wearing, shotgun-wielding master tactician.
On Friday July 1 2011, Deadline.com reported that Adrianne Palicki has been tapped to play the female lead role in G.I. JOE 2. Her character will be Lady Jaye and she joins The Rock and Channing Tatum as part of the focal cast. Interesting thing is, she was available for this prominent role because the new Wonder Woman TV Show was cancelled by NBC earlier this year.That show had a lot of mixed reviews from the NBC execs, following a private screening held back in May 2011 - and the critics that got to see the pilot episode hammered it with harsh negative reviews. Thus it will not be in the fall 2011 TV lineup of prime-time shows.
Adrianne Palicki is shown below, in a sexy red dress [screenshot from the G.I. JOE 2 Movie]
The previous blog article I did concerning the cancelled Wonder Woman TV Show was posted HERE.
The guy who played Snake Eye's nemesis in the first JOE Movie, Storm Shadow, is back. His name is Lee Byeong-heon. He is a martial arts star from Korea, and he is also a model and a singer. He's got a stone-cold persona, so the villainous role fits him very well. That's him below on the left. And Storm Shadow is shown with the Baroness in the second picture [a clip from the first JOE Movie].
Also, General Joesph Colton [the original G.I. JOE] will be portrayed by action star Bruce Willis in this movie sequel. And he was the old-timer shown at the very end of the trailer clip above.
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The original sci-fi action flick, G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, hit theaters back in 2009. It featured the bad guys utilizing hordes of tiny nanotech inspired creatures called nanites to devastate the world, city by city. And the covert Special Forces team called the JOES were called in to lay down the law.
Channing was the focal character and he was accompanied by Marlon Wayans [who played Ripcord] and their on-screen chemistry as comrades was perfect. I enjoyed this one so much that I bought the DVD later. That first movie was directed by Stephen Summers [who also directed The Mummy and The Mummy Returns]. And this prequel, G.I.JOE:TROC , cost 175 million dollars per its production budget, while the spectacular visuals showcased in the movie were proof of its lofty price. Although it earned 150-mil domestically that summer, it still grossed a total of about 302 million dollars world wide, making it a huge success for a franchise that initially started as an outlet for selling toys back in the 80s.
In my opinion, Summers should have been brought back by Paramount Pictures to direct the sequel. I'm guessing he's tied up producing another action flick that has clashing deadlines. I did some research on Jon Chu [the selected director for G.I. JOE 2] and found that he's never done an action flick before. He was the guy behind the dance movies: Step Up 2 and Step Up 3-D. Perhaps his latest demo reel was just so damn good that the studio figured they'd select him... or maybe the Special-FX budget for part 2 [ G.I. JOE:CS ] will push it into the Star Wars range in terms of the production scope.
We'll have to keep an eye on this project to see how it develops, since the rumor is there are a lot of casting changes going on, which will bring different faces to the core team and the villains, in contrast to those featured in the first G.I. JOE movie...
BTW, as of JULY 2011, the movie title has been changed to G.I. JOE 2: Retaliation
And lets hope they bring back the three characters shown below.
Clockwise: Ripcord, Scarlett, movie clips from G.I. JOE:TROC and Snake Eyes.
Overview of the DSNG sci fi series: HERE
And check out the 5-star rated DSNG Ebook 4: HERE