When GI Joe 2 got pushed back a whole year at the last minute after Paramount had already spent a fortune on Super Bowl ads, and they said the delay was so that they could convert it into 3D, we figured they were full of it. Well now Nikki Finke has gotten her own inside scoop over at Toldja.com, and according to her, the real reason they delayed it is more in line with what we’ve been saying all along: If you make a movie with C-Tates in it, you don’t kill him off in the first five minutes! That’s business suicide! The man is a human burlap sack with a dollar sign on it that C-walks!

“The 3D is an excuse as to not reveal the Tatum of it all,” one of my sources tells me.

AWWWWWW SKEET SKEET SKEET. I love that quote. I like to imagine a business exec writing his offer on a piece of paper, then slowly sliding across the conference table, where another exec opens it to REVEAL: A child-like drawing of C-Tates with hearts coming out of it.

Of course this June Tatum appears in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike as a stripper (inspired by Tatum’s own experiences, pre-stardom). My sources insist Paramount didn’t want uniformed Channing to compete with stripping Channing on the same weekend. Not with those abs.

I love Hollywood.

[Says Nikki Finke's unnamed source at Paramount] “Also Channing Tatum had a breakout spring, starring in The Vow and 21 Jump Street. In our first screening of the film the reaction from audiences was good but with 2 big concerns: 1) They didn’t like the fact that Channing and The Rock really didn’t have any time to develop a friendship before Channing died, and 2) Why wasn’t it going to be in 3D? We went back and shot another week with Channing to develop more of his story with The Rock, which made the film play much better. But we didn’t have the time to be in 3D.

“Then a week ago Battleship basically had the same performance as John Carter – $60M-$70M U.S. and just over $200M international. That was just a wake-up call that said to us we need to offer the best version of the film irrespective of summer market share to ensure the best possible performance. And not being in 3D will cost us a ton of business internationally.” [Deadline]

You wonder what they could add in through reshoots to give C-Tates a bigger part with the movie essentially already in the can. I like to think that he appears to The Rock the way Obi-wan Kenobi appears to Luke Skywalker, or Elvis to Clarence Worley in True Romance. Like, at the climactic moment when The Rock has to reverse the polarity on his plasma cannon and he’s got just this one shot to take out Cobra’s entire high command before the rec center is lost. That’s when C-Tates appears to him as an apparition, saying “Do it, playa. Do it for the fly honeys.”