“We should keep the part with the El Camino for sure.”
I won’t pretend like GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was the best movie that we’ve ever seen. I won’t even pretend like it was a good movie. But it was what it was – a movie about a cartoon about toys. So when you’re working with that goofy of a concept, you don’t necessarily expect the film’s writers to submit a screenplay for a modern day Citizen Kane, but David Elliot and Paul Lovett still did their jobs, along with co-writer Stuart Beattie, and $300 million later, Rise of Cobra was sort of a success*.
And in this day and age, a “sort of” success is typically good enough for a sequel, so naturally GI Joe: Retaliation was a go. But instead of Marlon Wayans and Dennis Quaid, Retaliation teamed The Rock and Bruce Willis with Channing Tatum (for a few minutes) and instead of Elliot, Lovett and Beattie, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were recruited. The result is $355 million and counting at the global box office.
Oh, and a huge lawsuit from Elliot and Lovett, who are accusing Paramount, MGM, Hasbro and Lorenzo Di Bonaventura of stealing their ideas.
