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‘G.I. Joe’ Director Fired In An Attempt To Save The Franchise?

So apparently not only the marketing materials have been getting blasted, but G.I. Joe itself isn’t testing well. Feel free to make a joke about knowing being half the battle.
By  · Published on June 11th, 2009

This news may or may not be a surprise for those of you following the ups and downs of this summer’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie…

According to Latino Review’s El Guapo, G.I. Joe director Stephen Sommers has been fired during post production and possibly barred from the editing room. Paramount has apparently brought in Stuart Baird to try and “fix” the film after advance screenings resulted in either shitty or great scores from audiences. (I say ‘either’ because the official source for the story claims the scores were the worst in Paramount’s history while El Guapo himself claims otherwise.) Baird’s editing skills are well known and on display in such films as Casino Royale, Vantage Point, and Lethal Weapon. He’s also dabbled in directing a few times (Executive Decision, Star Trek: Nemesis).

The gist of the story seems to be that neither Sommers nor producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had any knowledge of the world of G.I. Joe before entering production and that ignorance shows onscreen. This wasn’t a surprise for anyone involved beforehand… executives from both Paramount and Hasbro knew they were hiring a hack director renowned for making lazy CGI-laden popcorn fluff (Van Helsing, The Mummy). So why the panic attack now… less than two months before the August release date? Head over to Latino Review for the full story.

Although it’s important to note that this news comes from an anonymous poster on one of the producer’s message boards. I’m not saying that username “Endtimes” doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he might not know what he’s talking about.

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Rob Hunter has been writing for Film School Rejects since before you were born, which is weird seeing as he's so damn young. He's our Chief Film Critic and Associate Editor and lists 'Broadcast News' as his favorite film of all time. Feel free to say hi if you see him on Twitter @FakeRobHunter.