John Chu’s G.I. Joe Retaliation is set to open on March 28th.  It was originally slated to open on June 29th way back in 2012, but was held back, according to some sources, to reconfigure the plotline so that Channing Tatum’s character was not killed off early in the movie, while others were sure that the studio shifted the film after test screenings indicated trouble with its intended audience.  Whatever the reason it was held back, the $185 million tentpole will be the third big budget "event" movie to launch so far in 2013 following the failure of Bryan Singer’s Jack the Giant Slayer and apparent success of Sam Raimi’s Jack the Giant Slayer.

 

The publicity campaign for the ensemble military science fiction action film that stars (along with Tatum) Bruce Willis, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Arnold Vosloo, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, and Lee Byung-hun, is been in high gear for several months and included a pricy Super Bowl spot, an indication that Paramount still has plenty of hope for the new movie based on the Hasbro toy series (see "Superbowl Movie Ads").