What really delayed G.I. Joe sequel?

Last week we heard that 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ was suddenly delayed by a whopping nine months, just four weeks before its release – from June 29 to March 2013.  It’s unusual to say the least for a massive Hollywood blockbuster to be yanked from the schedules like this.

The official line from studio executives at Paramount was that they needed more time to convert the film to 3D.

But no-one was buying that, and sure enough more plausible reasons are beginning to emerge in the Hollywood trade press; namely Channing Tatum and Spider-Man.

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(Spoilers below)

Firstly, over at Deadline, a Paramount mole said that when the film was screened for test audiences, Joe Public got angry when Channing Tatum (who also starred in the first film) was killed off early on.

They said: '[test audiences] didn’t like the fact that Channing and The Rock really didn’t have any time to develop a friendship before Channing died.”

As the trailer suggests, Tatum's character is (possibly) bumped off in the first act, with his team replaced by one led by Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson. Deadline reckoned a week of reshoots were hastily scheduled after the test screenings so the pair could have more screen time together.

An even madder possibility from The Hollywood Reporter’s sources is that Channing’s character will be totally resurrected. Such a shift would require months’ worth of reshoots, re-writes and the creation of new special effects.

So why all the fuss about Channing Tatum? Simply, since filming began on ‘G.I. Joe 2’, he’s become a big star. His last two films ‘The Vow’ and ’21 Jump Street’ were both (surprisingly) big hits.

He’s now firmly on the A-list, which is perhaps why audiences found it disconcerting to see him killed off so early.

Another Channing-shaped problem for the studio was ‘Magic Mike’, which sees the actor play a male stripper.  It was scheduled for release on the same week as the new ‘G.I. Joe’ movie in the US, and Paramount bigwigs were apparently not keen on Tatum competing with himself (or those abs).

The biggest problem for poor G.I. Joe though may be Spider-Man.  A reboot for the character - 'The Amazing Spider-Man' - is out just a week after ‘Joe’s’ original release date, and sources told THR that Paramount chair Brad Grey and Vice chair Rob Moore felt the expense of moving to 2013 was preferable to a duel with the webslinger.

Whatever the real reason, speculation will be following 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' all the way to its new March 2013 release date.

Watch the trailer for 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation'