3D or Not To Be, that was the question.

I got to see some footage and a ton of toys from GI: Joe Retaliation at this year’s Hasbro event and it looks like I’ll be seeing the same toys next year, because GI: Joe 2 just got booted back into March 2013.

We were going to get our new GI: Joe movie this June with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bruce Willis and Adrianne Palicki taking over the lead roles (most of the Joes die in the first act, that’s in the trailer and I don’t know why they even made a Channing Tatum character poster) under director John Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets).

Everything I’ve seen from this film makes it look like tons of wacky fun, so – what’s up?

First off, the business end, which is the claim from Paramount for the move:

We can blame both 3D and The Hunger Games for this bonehead move – GI: Joe Retaliation will be released March 29th, 2013 in horrid post-converted 3D supposidly to boost box office internationally. Whomever the idiot is who spoke to Deadline about this says: “Jim Cameron did all ofTitanic‘s 3D in post — and look how well that movie turned out.”

Hey, executive: sit on a dick. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I went to the James Cameron Titanic 3D presentation and I promise you that you’re not doing it right. First, James Cameron had hundreds of artists working for years fabricating stereoscopic data for Titanic. Second, Titanic was shot in a way where a 3D post conversion could actually benefit the scope of that movie (as opposed to an action movie which requires a minimum amount of frames before your eyes can adapt to 3D motion). Third: I’m not sure how this helps you internationally, but I’ll plead ignorance on that point, Paramount. You do what you like in the wide world.

The other x-factor in play is that The Hunger Games proved March movies matter this year, much like we talked about Thor’s bowing into May two years ago altred the traditional summer movie season, The Hunger Games has pushed it even closer to the beginning of the year.

Now, the zeitgeist end, which I think is the real reason:

The Avengers, Prometheus, Spider-Man, Dark Knight Rises – who needs another attempt at making GI: Joe work in that line-up? After Disney saw John Carter eat about $200 million in losses, just tossing your big budget movie into the summer is starting to look epspecially perilous in 2012. Add on top of that rumors that GI: Joe Retaliation might be getting a prolonged seires of reshoots to retcon out that early Channing Tatum death I mentioned above.

Already, Hasbro and Paramount are worried about GI: Joe 2. A lot of this movie is based around direct reactions to what the fans thought about GI: Joe (from Cobra Commander starting to look like he’s supposed to in the series to re-setting the whole Joe landscape), and if whatever John Chu delivered was another “fun” movie instead of a GI: Joe movie, well, Paramount could spend the next few months trying to “fix” it.

Heck, Dwayne Johnson is on Twitter claiming these will be “3D specific” but you know he really means: “Paramount won’t let me say ‘adding story’”

The only winner here is TED, Seth MacFarlene’s Marky Mark and a Talking Bear movie that has moved into the June 29th 2012 void. We lost, because whatever movie we get in March will cost us $3-4 in additional scratch to see.

This was the sort of decision that should have been made long ago, not a month before release. Get your act together, Paramount, this reeks like you have a turd you want to polish for eight months.