From the good folks at IGN.com:
Exclusive: G.I. Joe 2 Buzz
Producer talks sequel and future characters.
by Chris Tilly, IGN UK
UK, August 4, 2009 – With G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra hitting screens worldwide this weekend, there will doubtless be rumblings of a sequel in the coming days, so IGN thought we’d go straight to the horse’s mouth and ask producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura about the possibility of G.I. Joe 2.
“It’s really the fans and how they vote” he explained. “If they vote big enough then the studio will see money in it and then they’ll come to us and say ‘Come on you guys, let’s go’.”
When asked about the open-ended nature of Rise of the Cobra‘s conclusion, the producer responded: “You never know. I’ve found over my career that if you really think about a second and third one, you f**k up the first one. We’re not naive – we know there’s lots of stories, we know this kind of thing has that possibility, but we’ve never really spent a moment thinking about the next movie or talking about it.”
He continued: “What’s interesting though, is that as deep as these back stories go – you look at Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes, since nine-years-old there’s been this thing going, and we discussed at length about what really did happen with the Hard Master, so there are some reveals to be had that if we are lucky enough to get to a second one, we can explore.”So which other characters does di Bonaventura want to include in a sequel?
“There’s a ton of them actually… one of the hard things about tackling these things is that there’s always the fan who says: ‘Why didn’t you pick Flint? Why did you pick Duke?’ It goes on. In general, what we’ve done with this, and what we did with Transformers, is you try to pick the most popular ones, and then if you’re lucky enough to make another one, you use the next most popular.”
“I like Flint a lot” he continued. “I think Flint’s a cool character. And I’ve always liked the name Roadblock. I just think that’s one of the greatest names ever. So somehow we’ve got to figure out how to get Roadblock in. I’m not sure I even like the character, but I love the name.”
So there you have it; G.I. Joe 2 a distinct possibility if the first hits big, and Flint and Roadblock shoo-ins for the sequel. Your thoughts?
And look out for our full G.I. Joe interview with di Bonaventura hitting IGN tomorrow.
Flint & Roadblock?! Does this mean Stone and Heavy Duty will be out of a job?