G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra got harsh treatment from some members of the press, but it was really a fun blockbuster movie, one that honored its source in most ways while telling an enjoyable, explosion-filled story. Plus, people actually got killed. For G.I. Joe, that’s real progress.
A sequel is now in development with Justin Bieber: Never Say Never director Jon Chu at the helm. Nothing has been publicly revealed about the story just yet, but Rise of Cobra star Rachel Nichols had a news flash to share with everyone on her Twitter account yesterday.
“GI JOE 2 News Flash: The only characters to return in the JON CHU directed sequel will be SNAKE EYES, STORM SHADOW, and DUKE…,” she wrote. In the first movie, Ray Park played Snake Eyes, Byung-hun Lee was Storm Shadow and Channing Tatum starred as Duke. The fact that Nichols sent the tweet probably also means that Scarlett is back as well.
Which is … strange, to say the least. Where is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Cobra Commander — or hell, just Cobra freaking Commander? Or Destro? Or Zartan??!?! He’s (spoiler alert) replaced the president for crying out loud! And if Nichols’ tweet only referred to the good guys, the Joes — which isn’t the case, since she mentions Storm Shadow — we still have to wonder what happened to Hawk (Dennis Quaid) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans).
Maybe Nichols has incomplete information? I hope so. The first movie had plenty of promise on its own and it nodded pretty strongly toward where a sequel might go. If some of these core characters really are not returning, where else could the movie go? Will we see Serpentor and Cobra-La instead?