With a strong opening weekend of $132 Million, GI Joe Retaliation is well on par to surpass its predecessor, Rise of Cobra. The opening beat out the first in the franchise by 35%. The successful opening has already spurred a third film to be made for the series, according to a report from Variety.
The nine month delay to convert to 3D payed dividends for the film, meaning the sequel will be 3D from the get go. No other details are known of the project at this time. The 3D conversion and several other risks helped make the film a success. Much was also riding on director John Chu, who was new to the action genre.
Having the star power of Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis certainly did not hurt either. Willis is a legend in action films and Johnson is becoming one of the action movie standards of this generation.
The GI Joe franchise has a long history of content from cartoons and comic books to choose from to base another movie on. There are still a wide variety of popular Joe characters to include on the team as well as many popular villains to feature. Could the scope of the films expand to include the Dreadknocks? Perhaps Destro could introduce his Iron Grenadiers? Then of course, there’s the topic of the Cobra emperor, Serpentor, which could be brought into the film world.
