Lorenzo di Bonaventura is executive producer of the upcoming ABC drama “Zero Hour,” so he was at the Television Critics Association panel for the show today. We approached him after the panel for an update on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, now a 2013 release after a 3D conversion and reshoots to update the cut that would have premiered in June 2012. Or so we thought. Di Bonaventura, the film’s producer, says the new cut is not significantly altered.
“It’s not much different,” Di Bonaventura says. “Literally, we shot for three extra days. We just added sort of explanation in what we did afterwards.”
Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis star in the sequel, which sees Cobra Command taking over the White House. Reports indicated that these reshoots were adding more of Channing Tatum, the star of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, who originally had a smaller role in the sequel. Di Bonaventura flat out refuted that information.
“No, it’s not,” Di Bonaventura says. “That is a complete rumor. I don’t know where that started. Literally, Channing shot for – if I have it wrong, I’m off by an hour – four hours, five hours? So it wasn’t really about that at all.”
Di Bonaventura also produces the Transformers films. With Mark Wahlberg and Jack Reynor joining the cast, we asked what made di Bonaventura comfortable that the Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) story was over. “I think as a filmmaker it’s always fun to continue to explore new ideas, and I think he didn’t really want to do it so that didn’t seem like a fun thing to do.”
We’ll be back with more on G.I. Joe: Retaliation after we know more, because knowing is half the battle.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
