Rumors are floating all over the net. They’ve been rumbling around for the better part of a month now, but it was last night’s disappearing blog post from Producer Don Murphy’s website alleging that Joe director Stephen Sommers had been fired that threw a match on the powderkeg.
Here are the highlights of the post by way of aintitcoolnews.com
1) G.I. JOE racked up lower test screening numbers than any film in recent Paramount history (this would include SERVING SARA and MARCI X).
2) Stephen Sommers has been fired.
3) Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has been told to stay away from the editing room.
4) Hasbro is panicked that the G.I. JOE brand has been ruined.
5) Lorenzo is a poopy-head.
AICN also spoke to George “El Guapo” Roush at Latino Review, who spoke to di Bonaventura about the situation.
Well listen, we tested very well and I don’t compare [it to the test screening numbers for TRANSFORMERS] because they are different movies, but you know I think its really destructive for a director…It hurts a guy’s career when people go around talking about that he was fired or he didn’t do a good job and truth is he did a really good job. People are going to enjoy the movie and the test audiences enjoyed the movie.
He did a very good job the movie tested well and it couldn’t be more false that the studio in anyway did anything negatively to Steve.
Is all this true? Is any of this true? We probably won’t know until we see some reviews of the actual film starting to pop up. One thing is for sure. There’s no way to ruin the G.I. Joe brand. Hell, if they can survive Manimals, than they can survive anything.