Is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ready to take over "G.I. Joe 3?"
While there hasn't been an official announcement to the highly anticipated series yet, word has it that the WWE superstar is ready to take center stage in the sequel.
It seems like everything The Rock touches turn into gold, and if that's what it takes to help "G.I. Joe 3" succeed in the box office, it will most certainly not hurt the franchise executives.
"The baton was passed and Roadblock became 'the man' when it comes to the G.I. Joe team," Cinema Blend claimed. "Which was contrary to the canon of the classic 1980's A Real American Hero cartoons and comic books.
It added, "Thus, the G.I. Joe film franchise, for all intents and purposes, is now a Dwayne Johnson franchise."
Franchise producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura confirmed that they are indeed planning for The Rock to take over "G.I. Joe 3," Screen Rant reported.
"The last movie was really the set up, in a way, for Roadblock to take over," di Bonaventura explained. "Dwayne came aboard a little late last time so we weren't able to do everything I think we can do this time, and really get a story that services what the audience expects out of him, and also as an actor pushes him into areas that you wouldn't normally explore in a big franchise movie perhaps."
In line with Dwayne Johnson headlining, the third installment to the action-adventure franchise will also try to steer away from the complexity of the story in the comics.
"The hardest thing in film, I think, is to reduce something to something simple," he said. "You want it to be smart, you want it to have all this complexity, you want to do all these things which sometimes makes it all so confusing. (...) This time we have a very clear, very defined, tight idea that I wish I had on every sequel I've ever worked on. Simple's the hardest to get to."
Meanwhile, director Jon Chu, who is set to return for "G.I. Joe 3" teased fans of the possibility of returning characters in an interview with MTV.
"You never know, Storm Shadow died in the first one and came back in the second one, and then other characters have died and never come back," Chu revealed. "The 'G.I. Joe' world, the best thing about it is you never know who's coming back and who's not."
