- GI JOE: RETALIATION
Lorenzo di Bonaventura is the producer behind both the
Tranformer franchise as well as the G.I.Joe franchise. Both franchises are part
of Hasbro company.
Di Bonaventura recently spoke with the guys over at
CinemaBlend about the latest G.I. Joe film, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, when the
producer revealed some interesting info about the future of the film, and the
possibility of a third film that could even bring back some cast members from
the first film.
When asked if his been thinking about the future of the
film, di Bonaventura said that:
“I, as a rule, don’t ever look ahead to the next movie until
the first one is done, because it’s hard to make the first one good enough or
the second one good enough, in this case. So the idea that I could spend a lot
of time thinking about something else until you’ve got this one right. On the
one hand I think it’s kind of arrogant to presume you’re going to be
successful, but more specifically, it’s, you just don’t have that much creative
bandwidth going on around you and what’ll be interesting is when we see it
released and we all hope it’s successful and hopefully we get to a third movie,
but I think things change after making a movie where you go like... I feel some
about certain things and certain characters right now in a certain way.
Three or four weeks from now, I might feel slightly
different and three months from now, I am going to feel different. Which ones
am I really going to hold onto and which elements am I going to really hold
onto and it’s sort out there, after the fact, where you go, “Well, that really
is...” You’re not caught up in the moment. That’s the thing that really stood
out and had resonance. I wasn’t... What’s interesting is the scenes, the
domestic scenes or the buddy scenes between Channing and Dwayne. I wouldn’t
have said before making that movie that having that sort of almost intimate
buddy moment was really part of this franchise. Now I’d say to you, “I think we
could do a lot more of it.” You know? Now, will I feel the same way a few
months from now? Probably. But that’s all part of the learning process. “
He was then asked if it would possible to see a Transformer
and G.I.Joe crossover, as both franchises originate from Hasbro, owned by
Paramount and are produced by him.
“I guess it’s possible,” di Bonventura said. “I don’t know.
I think I probably at this moment, I resist it. I don’t know necessarily why,
but I just think there’s so much that’s so rich in the mythologies that I don’t
think they need to draw from the other. I think, I didn’t rule it out for me
and I think those things have somehow for me, sort of in the past, they made me
feel like a little bit cynical exercises in just drawing money out of
something. It’s not to say you couldn’t do it well, but both these properties
have such rich mythologies with so many characters, that you could go a lot of
movies before you start running out of ideas of what to do. But it’s not to
say, if we found the right... I’d hate to set out to do that, but if I heard a
story where we went, “Oh my God...,” I could see a story right now about
machination, machination of war and that could lead you sort of intrinsically to
a Transformer.”
Catch G.I. Joe Retaliation in a Theater near you.
