(The photoshopped sunglasses heard round the world)

There’s a rumor floating around the internet that Stephen Sommers was fired mid-way through shooting G.I. Joe (anyone who saw Van Helsing wouldn’t have hired him in the first place).  Here’s the original rumor, which came from this messageboard (sorry for all the words, I’ll edit as best I can):

After a test screening wherein the film tested the lowest score ever from an audience in the history of Paramount, the executive who pushed for the movie, Brad Weston, had Stephen Sommers, the super hack director fired. Removed. Locked out of the editing room.

Stuart Baird, a renowned “fixer” editor was brought it to try to see if it could be made releasable. Meanwhile producer Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] whose turkey IMAGINE THAT explodes this weekend as the new bomb in theatres (also championed by Weston) was told his services were no longer needed on the film either.

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who turned down other offers from the property to go with the script that was rushed in 8 weeks by Stuart Beattie because of the writer’s strike is frantic that this will destroy the brand and is distancing himself from the pending catastrophe.

NONE of this needed to happen, except someone who did not know the mythology, Lorenzo was in charge of the film and never contradicted Sommers on anything. Lorenzo, was Chairman of Warners and had GI JOE under option there (not as a producer) for SEVEN years and he refused to greenlight the film, stating that because he grew up in Italy he had no knowledge of it. If you google enough, at one point you will see he wanted the film to be about an action hero named MANN (Action Man, get it) and he clearly had no clue what the GI Joe world really was.

LatinoReview just spoke with Di Bonaventura, who denies the story, which isn’t surprising considering the story kind of makes him look bad, and as anyone will tell you, Hollywood peoples’ number one motivator is to not look bad.  Other people are refuting the “tested low” part of the story, but when a movie tracking 13% on Rotten Tomatoes can supposedly test well, it just goes to show that maybe an audience full of unemployed extras isn’t the greatest indicator of… anything.  But the part that smells of BS to me is part where the CEO of Hasbro is supposedly embarrassed. This is the same guy producing a Candyland movie. This guy wouldn’t embarrassed of his daughter doing scheiss porn. Or worse, Danny Masterson.