Third 'G. I Joe' Planned

Paramount will make a third G.I. Joe film, according to Variety.  The decision the weekend G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the second film in the franchise, opened reflects the strong box office.  The film grossed over $130 million worldwide  from when it opened Wednesday through Sunday.   One factor in the strong box office was 3-D ticket prices.  The release of Retaliation was delayed for the 3-D conversion and it seems to have paid off.  The three-quel will also be released in 3-D.

'G.I. Joe' Needed Work : the Real Reason for the Delay

G.I. Joe: Retaliation was testing poorly and needed reshoots, according to Deadline,  which is why the release date was pushed back from June to 2013 . Channing Tatum, who’s gotten hot since the first film, was going to be killed off early in the sequel, but was one of the few things testing audiences liked. Reshoots will help expand his role and keep him alive. And the 3D move was essential, given how the dollars on the summer blockbusters have flowed.
 

The delay of the movie at this late stage, when theaters were booked and licensed merchandise had started to flow, was a radical move, reflecting the degree of risk Paramount perceived in releasing the movie as it was and the size of the opportunity in fixing it

Universal Moves 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' to March, 2013

Paramount has moved G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which was slated to debut on June 29th, to March 29th, 2013 in order to add 3-D in an attempt to bolster foreign sales. Paramount is giving up one of the prime dates of the summer and Universal quickly stepped in to help fill the late June void with the buzz-generating Ted, an "R" rated comedy by Seth MacFarlane about a foul-mouthed Teddy Bear that stars Mila Kunis and Mark Wahlberg.

Paramount has already spent quite a bit promoting the $125 million G.I. Joe sequel including a pricy Super Bowl ad and several trailers. Based on the Hasbro property, G.I. Joe: Retaliation was directed by Jon M. Chu and adds Bruce Willis and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to a solid ensemble cast.

As Deadline points out, Paramount has had some luck in the past changing release dates. The studio delayed the release of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and managed to give the director his box office best.

Paramount isn’t the only studio that has delayed a studio tentpole that was supposed to debut in 2012 in order to add TV. Already smarting from what appears to be a considerable loss with Battleship, Universal has moved the Keanu Reeves-starring 47 Ronin to 2013 and is citing 3-D as the reason. However Hollywood rumor has it that the studio is afraid the $200 million plus samurai epic is too risky to open in the same year in which Battleship has already put a major dent in the Universal’s bottom line.

Liebesman to Helm Live "TNMT" Feature

The Hollywood trades are all reporting that Jonathan Liebesman is in negotiations to direct Paramount’s live-action reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Paramount and producer Michael Bay. At this point in his career, Liebesman, who directed the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well as Battle: Los Angeles and the forthcoming Wrath of the Titans, which debuts on March 30th, is a legit, if somewhat of a second-tier, director.

Created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a comic book parody and became a worldwide kids’ entertainment phenomenon spinning off TV cartoons, feature films, and more toys than there are bedbugs in Manhattan.

The studio has released few details about the script for the franchise reboot, which was written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, the pair that penned the recent hit Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol for Tom Cruise.

Leonard Nimoy to Voice Sentinel Prime

It must be “add some illustrious vocal credits to your summer blockbuster" week. Just a day after Warner Bros. announced that Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush would be providing the voice of Tomar-Re in Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern movie, Paramount let it be known that the iconic Leonard Nimoy would handle the vocal chores for the robot Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Sentinel Prime is the “ancestor” of Transformers “good guy” autobot Optimus Prime. In Dark of the Moon the wreckage of Sentinel Prime is found on the moon by the Apollo 11 Astronauts and brought to Earth where he adopts the vehicle disguise of a Rosenbauer fire truck. Nimoy, who is most famous for his role as Mr. Spock in Star Trek, is no stranger to the Transformers universe. In 1986 he provided the voice of Galvatron in Transformers: the Movie.

Paramount Ends "Dune" Efforts

Paramount’s option to make a movie based on Frank Herbert’s Dune has expired, and the studio’s four year efforts with the property have come to an end, according to Deadline. Efforts to reach a new agreement between the rights holder and Paramount were unsuccessful.

There’s a script by Chase Palmer that may survive in some new incarnation, according to the report, and Paramount’s last director for the project, Pierre Morel (Taken), could also end up working on the film for another studio if the project goes into turnaround.

Will There Be a 'Magic 8-Ball' Movie?

Paramount, which scored a major success with Hasbro’s Transformers, has extended its deal with toy company Mattel by acquiring the rights to make a live action adventure movie based on the Magic 8-Ball, a predictive toy, which contains a die with 20 pre-set answers.

Hollywood’s headlong pursuit of “toyetic” properties, which is evident in numerous projects currently in development including Battleship, Stretch Armstrong, Risk, and Major Mason, made it likely that a studio would try to make a Magic 8-Ball movie, especially since Universal is already prepping a film based on Hasbro’s Ouija Board Game.

Deadline New York is reporting that Paramount, which is already working with Mattel on a Max Steel movie, has hired Jon Gunn and John Mann, who have written Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians for Dreamworks Animation, to write the screenplay for the Magic 8-Ball movie.

Brett Ratner Helming Conan?

According to The Hollywood Reporter director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men 3: The Last Stand) “is in final negotiations to take on literature’s most famous barbarian.” Be prepared for a massive collective wail from certain quarters of fandom that don’t see Ratner as anything more than a mediocre director of campy cop capers. Speaking of which, it is likely that Ratner will helm Beverly Hills Cop IV (penned by Wanted scribes Michael Brandt and Derek Haas) for Paramount before commencing his work on the new Conan movie—both films are tentatively slated to be released in 2010.

Co-produced by Nu Image/Millennium and Lionsgate, and written by Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly, the new Conan film is an origin saga for the mesomorphic mutilator that hews closely to the spirit of the original Robert E. Howard stories (see “Conan Movie on the Fast Track”). According to The Reporter, the new Conan film will be R-rated (like the original John Milius 1982 Conan the Barbarian, and not PG-13 like the franchise-snuffing Conan the Destroyer from 1984) and have a budget of $85 million (down from earlier estimates of $100 million).