The top brass at Hasbro must be tearing their hair out over Paramount’s fundamental inability to turn the potentially lucrative G.I. Joe property into anything even remotely resembling a money-spinning franchise.
Stephen Sommers’ The Rise of Cobra and Jon M. Chu’s Retaliation both earned in excess of $300 million at the box office, but the profit margins weren’t close to what the studio were expecting given their respective budgets. Prequel spinoff Snake Eyes came burdened with relatively modest production costs of $80 million, and yet became the biggest flop of the pandemic era.
Robert Schwentke’s actioner was recently granted a release in China, hoping to make up for a dismal theatrical showing that had yielded just $37 million. However, The Hollywood Reporter reveals that not only did Snake Eyes bomb hard after earning a meager $1.5 million in its opening weekend, but it also gained the distinction of becoming the lowest-rated Hollywood movie to have landed in the country since the onset of the pandemic.
On social networking sites Maoyan and Douban, Snake Eyes has been awarded paltry audience scores of 5.8 and 4.3, lower than any other American-backed title to have arrived in the last 20 months, so it’s back to the drawing board for the Joes yet again.