Trivia / G.I. Joe: Retaliation

• All-Star Cast: Not quite, but Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis are featured very prominently, Johnson playing a normally secondary character Roadblock.
• B-Team Sequel: Stephen Sommers was originally going to return as director. Meanwhile, Henry Jackman replaced Alan Silvestri as composer.
• Doing It for the Art: To prepare for his role as Firefly, Ray Stevenson read the comics. He became a fan of his character, even putting in his own money so that the costume designers would make a mask to go with the costume.
• Fake Nationality: Quite a few:
  • Snake-Eyes is American but is played by the Scottish Ray Park.
  • Lee Byung-Hun is a Korean actor playing the Japanese Storm Shadow.
  • Jonathan Pryce (Welsh) plays the American president as well as Zartan (an Australian) who was disguised as the president.
    • That said, the "real" Zartan was played by a South African actor.
  • French-Cambodian actress Élodie Yung plays the Japanese Jinx.
  • The Irish Ray Stevenson plays the Southern-American Firefly.
• Fatal Method Acting: A crew member was killed while dismantling a set in New Orleans, Louisiana, when the scissor lift he was on tipped over, causing him to fall to his death.
• God Never Said That: Jon Chu made comments in a pre-release interview that were interpreted to mean the Cobra Commander in this film is not Rex Lewis from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but in a subsequent interview he clarified that he’d been misinterpreted; his comments referred to Joseph Gordon-Levitt not reprising the role, despite Cobra Commander being written as the same character from the previous film.
• Killed by Request: Channing Tatum has revealed that killing Duke was his idea.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • There's a scene where Roadblock is confronted for apparently having once gone rogue.
  • Another where instead of just escaping, Cobra Commander comes in on his helicopter in a last ditch attempt to finish off the Joes.
• The Other Darrin: Luke Bracey (with Robert Baker handling voice duties) replaces Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander, as he was busy filming The Dark Knight Rises.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Bruce Willis was thrilled to play the original G.I. Joe, having grown up playing with the action figures.
  • As a child, Adrianne Palicki (Lady Jaye) was a fan of G.I. Joe and wanted to be Jinx.
• Schedule Slip: Of nine months from June 2012 to March 2013, so the film could be converted to 3D and more scenes could be shot with Channing Tatum, after the main complaints from test screenings were that the film wasn't going to be in 3D and audiences weren't happy with how little time was spent on the development of the friendship between Duke and Roadblock before Duke's death. It was also announced a month before the films release, and roughly a week before the toys were due to be released.
• Screwed by the Network: More like Screwed by the Film Studio; the film was postponed nine months on almost the exact week that the toys went out on the shelves, which (as explained above) in turn screwed up toy shelves for the rest of 2012.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: The movie was originally slated for release in 2012, but was held back a year to do some reshoots with Channing Tatum, expanding Duke's role in the film. Carrie Vaughn suggests this expansion must have come at the cost of other scenes (such as a possible reaction shot from the British Prime Minister when London was destroyed or any characterization for Flint at all) which had to be cut to stay at a 110-minute running time. An extended cut was made available for Blu-Ray the day of release as an exclusive to Best Buy (in the US), extending the running time by twelve minutes. Whether it's an improvement is up for debate, but Flint does get a bit more characterization.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: The action figures released prior to the film include Storm Shadow, even though he was supposedly killed in his battle with Snake-Eyes in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
• Troubled Production:
  • As noted below, the movie's highly-anticipated release was delayed by nine months for reshoots, almost at the last moment. This was ostensibly to make a 3-D version possible and boost interest in international markets (and, unofficially, to avoid competing with Magic Mike, also starring Tatum, and to add more scenes capitalizing on his increased popularity following that film and 21 Jump Street).
  • This wouldn't have been so much of a problem had Paramount not been heavily promoting the original June release date up to the point they put it off, leaving them with just two movies on their summer calendar. Left in the lurch in the meantime was an entire line of toys based on the movie that Hasbro was bringing out.
  • The effort to "boost interest in international markets" notwithstanding, the film was still banned in Pakistan due to its negative portrayal of that country.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Common was the first choice to play Roadblock. Scheduling conflicts with him were what caused the character to be replaced by Heavy Duty in the first film.
  • F. Gary Gray was considered to direct.
  • Chris Pratt auditioned for the movie.
  • Faran Tahir was rumored for the role of Cobra Commander before it revealed by Jon M. Chu on Twitter that both Luke Bracey and Robert Baker would play the character with Bracey on set and Baker voicing.

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