Political Shenanigans Add More Fuel To GI Joe’s Potential Box Office Bomb

Have we heard a single good thing about GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra? Well, ya, we have. We’ve heard that Ray Park rocks… as always. However, all the other news has been pretty awful. Stories have ranged from actors doing poorly to the director being locked out of the editing room. Let’s not even talk about the lack luster trailers that have been released.

One of the first scandals about the movie goes way back to before filming when it was announced that GI Joe would no longer be a Real American Hero, but it would actually be an international fighting force based out of the UN. After thousands of angry emails and letters, many of them from service members who joined up after growing up with GI Joe, the apparently made some sort of compromise and they are now based out of NATO.

So now, because the heavy military overtones of the film, the brilliant marketing team has decided to bring politics into the sales pitch for the film… Here’s the hitch though, they either have no idea what the movie is really about or they are selling opposite messages to different audiences in a scheme that will most likely piss off both sides of the fence.

In America, Paramount’s team is forgoing the typical advertising markets and are focusing a patriotic message to what they call “The Heartland of America.”

Meanwhile, while on a recent trip to Europe, the embattled director of the film, Stephen Sommers decided to go the complete opposite direction in a highly politicized statement of what should really just be treated as a summer popcorn muncher.

Here’s what Sommers has to say.

“This is not a George Bush movie — it’s an Obama world. Right from the writing stage we said to ourselves, this can’t be about beefy guys on steroids who all met each other in the Vietnam War, but an elite organization that’s made up of the best of the best from around the world.”

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.