Yesterday, P
aramount shocked the world by delaying its summer tentpole G.I. Joe: Retaliation a full nine months from its release that was previously scheduled for June 29. The studio said they wanted to convert to 3D which had some puzzled as to why they had not thought of this before considering the film’s director Jon M. Chu has extensive experience with the technology.
According to THR, Chu told the studio that if he did 3D he wanted to do it right and go all in, but Paramount shrugged off the offer at the time thinking the technology was not necessary for this film to be a hit. After all, Fast Five made crazy money at the box office, and that was not in 3D. Fast forward to this week and we see the big news out of Hollywood that the Hasbro-spawned Battleship film lost $150 million for Universal which was blamed not just on the movie’s B-quality, but its lack of 3D meaning that what previously was seen as a novelty might now be a requirement particularly when it comes to overseas success.
More surprising than Paramount’s initial dismissal of the tech is today’s news which comes from hardcore Twitter-er Dawyne Johnson who took to the social media platform to respond to the film’s delay:
It will be. Designing new scenes to enhance 3D. RT:
@JimmyinGA: Was looking forward to GI Joe next month. Hope the 3D is worth the wait. – @TheRock
It is in this lens that we begrudgingly accept the circumstances at hand with G.I. Joe 2′s new date of March 29, 2013. However, we do want to know just how crazy this studio is. Does Paramount believe they need to plop down millions more to save this film through re-shoots, or that the movie will be so successful that the utilization of 3D would pay for this delay. If it is the latter, that could be a tough sell considering expanding production like this gets expensive not to mention that the studio already exhausted $10′s of millions on a marketing campaign for the feature that included a pricy super bowl spot.