You’d be forgiven for forgetting that the G.I. Joe franchise was once set to continue this year, with awkwardly-titled prequel/reboot hybrid Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins flying under most people’s radars anyway, even without the recent announcement that it had become the latest movie to fall victim to the Coronavirus pandemic. Now, it’s been delayed from October of this year to an unspecified date in 2021.
The two previous installments in the series didn’t receive much love from either critics or audiences, with The Rise of Cobra earning a 34% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a box office total of $302 million, while sequel Retaliation suffered from worse reviews but improved commercially. Although, a global tally of $375 million isn’t exactly a great return for a $130 million action movie with Dwayne Johnson in the lead.
The presence of R.I.P.D. and The Divergent Series‘ Robert Schwentke behind the camera on Snake Eyes isn’t particularly encouraging, but the cast nonetheless looks to be in pretty decent shape, with Crazy Rich Asians breakout star Henry Golding playing the title character and support being lent by the fast-rising talent Samara Weaving and modern-day martial arts icon Iko Uwais.
It would be fair to say that expectations are pretty low for this one, but Golding recently took to social media to reveal that he’d seen a working cut of the movie for the first time, and the 33 year-old promised that Snake Eyes more than lived up to his expectations. It seems he hopes fans will feel the same, too.
Just saw 🐍… Holy hell. This is the exact opposite of the cookie cutter, super people movies. Wow. You guys are in for something insane, I can't wait for you all to get your mits on this beast. Yowzers!!!! 🔥 Literally grinning from ear to ear 🙏🏼
— Henry Golding (@henrygolding) August 8, 2020
Obviously, the leading man isn’t going to hop onto Twitter and tell everyone that his new movie sucks, but if Snake Eyes can offer a marked improvement on the last two G.I. Joe films, then at the very least we could be in store for the sort of exciting mid-budget actioner that Hollywood doesn’t really tend to make anymore.