Jon Chu On Casting Bruce Willis And Dwayne Johnson In G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

UPDATED: The director of the upcoming sequel talks about casting Johnson and Willis in the film, as well as making a G.I. Joe movie for non-fans of the franchise and its differences from Rise Of Cobra.

By PaulRom - Apr 23, 2012 12:04 PM EST

Filed Under: G.I. Joe

Source: THR

Talking with The Hollywood Reporter, director Jon M. Chu discusses his upcoming action film G.I. Joe: Retaliation. In the interview, he discusses casting Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Bruce Willis, the character of Roadblock (Johnson), rebooting the cast from 2009's The Rise Of Cobra and whether or not the absence of some of the characters in that film will be addressed in the sequel. Chu also talks about making a G.I. Joe film "for people who don't know anything about G.I. Joe".

On Casting Dwayne Johnson And Bruce Willis:

He [Willis] was always our dream guy to play Joe Colton, the original Joe, [but] I didn’t necessarily know if he would ever do something like this. It’s such a very specific brand -- the character Joe Colton exists, but not really. But the question I keep getting from people like my mom is, “well, who plays Joe?” And there is no Joe, but we had this character Joe Colton that we built into the movie that would help bring it back to the basics. That was a big part of the movie -- these guys don’t have laser guns; they are relearning how to be a soldier all on the ground, how to be a leader, how to make moral decisions, all those things, reset it all. And Bruce is the guy [to anchor that]. So Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] reached out to him, but when you’re courting Bruce it’s not like, he’s going to do it – yay! It’s months and months of winning his trust, him learning about who I am and learning what the brand is about. And I never really thought it would fully happen until he showed up on set, but he came through and he was awesome. I mean, he exudes the tone of the movie because he’s so cool and he’s so that guy, but at the same time doesn’t take himself too seriously. He just gives you that little wink, or whenever he says one line you just get it. So it was fun -- and to have [him and Dwayne Johnson] both next to each other is blowing my mind. They love each other, Bruce and Dwayne. I'm surprised they’ve never been in a movie together, so Bruce, him and then the brand, G.I. Joe, they all just up the ante. No matter what I do in the movie, it already has a specific tone.

That is what took us the longest [Casting Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson]. We were already doing design work, the costumes, the set work. Everything was like closing in and we did not have a cast yet, but we all knew that it was important to find the right guy that would set everything up. And when you look out in the landscape, who is that masculine action hero that isn’t just a pretty boy? Dwayne is that, and he’s charming and he’s family friendly. So when we met we actually and sat down with him, we connected really quickly.

On The Character Of Roadblock:

He [Johnson] comes from a military family -- his cousin is in active duty I believe right now -- and so he comes from a very real place. He’s like, this means a lot to me in terms of the military men and women out there and servicing that and their kids, to know that like their parents are heroes, and yes, we’re in a fantasy world, but it represents the same ideals. And so we’ve had a lot of long, long discussions about that and he worked hard on honing the character, learning all about Roadblock. So it’s just fun to like explore how they changed things throughout the comic book and the toys. They would just make up facts, so it’s hard to like come up with the actual “who he is,” but we got to pick and choose, which is nice. But he wasn’t like movie star diva or something like that, like, “well, I'm the guy, so why would I crawl on the floor right now?” He was down. And when you think about who represents the ultimate iconic action hero or action figure, he’s the only one right now. The only other ones are old school guys like Bruce. And to have both of them pays homage to the history, also sort of bridges the gap for the people who don’t know anything about G.I. Joe at all. It really, really is nice.

On Rebooting The Cast And Whether Or Not It Was Chu's Decision:

Part me, part not me. And by the time I came in they had a script already -- but not fully there, and we added a lot of things. Like Joe Colton wasn’t in the movie. We added that and Roadblock and things like that that weren’t just in there yet, but we knew we wanted to create a different world. You can’t discount the first movie at all -- it was a huge and people loved it -- but for me what I love about Joe is that everybody has interpreted theirs different ways. The comic book interprets it in one way. Even in the cartoon series, they switched theme songs in the middle, and so everybody interprets it in a different way. So for me I was like, let’s jump to a different part of the Joe world. It’s the same world, but at a different point. So when I pitched it, that was the idea -- let’s pay homage to the old stuff, but also do new stuff. G.I. Joe was ultimate mash-up before mash-up ever existed, so that’s perfect right now. And all the kids who don’t know anything about G.I. Joe, who only know Call of Duty, who stole all their stuff from G.I. Joe, let’s reclaim it and do it better.

We address [the absence of some of the characters in Rise Of Cobra] a little bit, but also leave some of it up in the air. But in my mind the movie was never about them, the movie is about our characters that you introduced from the beginning. We wanted people to come into this movie, and if you haven’t seen the first movie, be totally okay, which is actually pretty tough, because Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are hard to explain to somebody who had never seen G.I. Joe. But we leave some of it open, so you’ll see.

UPDATE: Additionally, Machinima has confirmed that they will debut a new trailer for the movie tonight at midnight PST (3 AM EST):

We'll have a new, exclusive @GIJoeMovie trailer on our channel at midnight PST tonight!
— Machinima (@Machinima_com) April 23, 2012

G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which also stars Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, D.J. Cotrona and Elodie Yung, hits theaters June 29th, later this year.

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20 Comments

Wildaniel - 4/23/2012, 1:08 PM

Reboot would have been better. Then we get Destro and Baroness back.

Seven23 - 4/23/2012, 1:20 PM

This jon chu is dumb asshole !!!!!

Wildaniel - 4/23/2012, 1:23 PM

I agree with Gusto Rachael Nichols was great as Scarlet, she should be in the movie.

AutobotCommander84 - 4/23/2012, 1:30 PM

@Wildaniel They have a toy of him so I'm assuming he is in the movie.

SpiderFan35 - 4/23/2012, 1:41 PM

Wow that is a lot to say about casting these two fine thespians. I imagined a dartboard with a bunch of actors faces taped to it lol.

SuperFrost - 4/23/2012, 1:43 PM

This one better not suck!

SpiderFan35 - 4/23/2012, 1:44 PM

@Gusto: I heard you wanted to have Peter MacNicols babies, my bad. :P

SpiderFan35 - 4/23/2012, 1:52 PM

@Gusto: bwahaha

AlexDeLarge87 - 4/23/2012, 2:39 PM

Movie looks better than the first but... yeah total reboot would have been much much better!

BuzzKiller - 4/23/2012, 2:48 PM

@xaviersfinest...you don't think so?! Just ask his housekeeper! :-)

Wildaniel - 4/23/2012, 3:13 PM

About time, movie needed a new trailer WEEKS AGO!

bonesmcgee - 4/23/2012, 3:31 PM

I really hope that Scarlett doesn't die and the film leaves it open for her to return. I agree with most that she was one of the best things about the first film.

SCURVYDOG619 - 4/23/2012, 5:42 PM

Should have consulted with Larry Hama....

mob7medina - 4/24/2012, 3:37 AM

wow im actually excited about this!the first film was such a letdown but scarlett should come back!!;p oh yeh!!

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