As someone who has not seen G.I. Joe or the recently released Retaliation, I’m not sure whether this should be taken as good or bad news. Either way, it’s kind of nutty for Paramount to announce that they’ve green-lit a sequel to a franchise whose latest iteration has only been out one week. Having the second best Easter weekend box office draw in history probably had something to do with it.
They’re no details yet, of course, but rest assured that the unmitigated success of the second film will probably encourage the studio to change little and have the cast return. So, if you like ninjas, male strippers, and a man who has neck muscles on his neck muscles you’ll probably be in luck.
When asked his thoughts on the next film in the franchise, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had this to say:
[via Collider]We haven’t spent any time considering what the next movie is. There are elements we’re really excited about. I’d like to do more ninja story. That’s really fun, and I think the mythology will support some really cool things. You know, I was a really huge fan of the TV show Combat! as a kid, and there’s an intimacy the show had because their budget demanded it—it’s always a bunch of guys and they’re going down a ditch. I’d like us to do some of that kind of stuff where you’re really on an intimate level. ‘Surprising’ isn’t the right word, but ‘gratifying’ how Dwayne and Channing’s ‘home scenes’, if you would, they’re not buddy scenes but they translated that way somehow. So they’re basic character scenes, and they’re domesticated scenes. How well that played in the scale of what we’re trying to do. I’d like to see more of that.
