Even now, in it’s fourth week of release, G.I. Joe: Retaliation continues to dominate International markets, mostly thanks to its debut in China this past week.  According to The Wrap, the film generated nearly $40M in International revenue, boosted by China’s whopping $33M contribution for the debut.  That amount actually puts it as the number 1 film worldwide, with Oblivion coming in a close second.

Over on the domestic side, G.I. Joe: Retaliation has now topped $111M, with a combined International and American total of $322M.  This has catapulted the sequel past the original G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and considering the budget was significantly less, this is obviously good news, especially considering Japan hasn’t even opened yet.

Check Box Office Mojo for the latest numbers.  Great news continues to emerge for the G.I. Joe film franchise, let’s hope it’s not too little too late for toys at retail.  Thanks to SkotAlderman on Twitter for the heads up.

Holy crap when did this go up?  Either I wasn’t paying attention the past few days, or I forgot entirely, but apparently Special Edition #30 of What’s on Joe Mind has been posted!  We recorded this episode straight from the JoeCon sales floor, bringing in a few of our favorite people for on-the-spot interviews, and even got cameos by some show regulars!  What the heck was Chuck’s mom even DOING there?!

Check out the latest Special Edition on our Podbean page, or through the embedded players below.

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So were our trio drunk or not for Special Edition #29…or did they lead you to think that?  Well if you think that is controversial, wait until you hear this report, “LIVE” from the sales floor.  Join Mike, Justin and Gary as they record directly out of the COIL Club’s booth, which is dead center of the sales floor.  The guys will report on what has happened thus far to this point in the show and interview friends and listeners as they stroll by.  You will also recognize two of the personalities we talk to as regular show “contributors”.  Who could they be?  You have to listen and find out.  No beers were consumed during this recording, but if you hate the consumption of donuts, you may want to skip this one.  Enjoy!!

• GeneralsJoes 2013 G.I. Joe Convention Coverage

Okay, hear me out on this one.

I know the rumbling through the online community has been somewhat negative in light of Hasbro’s lack of new product to be shown at the 2013 G.I. Joe Convention in Indianapolis this past weekend.  In fact, not only were people bothered by a lack of new product, when Hasbro showed some more concept items, some fans got visibly upset, thinking that this was just a “tease” for items that would likely not be offered.

Let me once again put on my “Hasbro Apologist” hat and tell everyone…  don’t be so quick to be discouraged.  I think there are some simple explanations for why Hasbro presence was down this year, and I think there are some reasons to be looking forward to the year ahead for G.I. Joe fans.  Click the Read the Rest of the Story link below for more.

Read the rest of this entry »

A short while ago, thanks to skinny, GeneralsJoes broke the news of G.I. Joe: Retaliation trading cards being quietly released through Enterplay.  Even though the prices seemed a bit stiff, I ordered a few, and discovered that the pricing wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared.

The list price for the Party Pack on the EnterPlay website, actually does mean “6 3-Packs”, which is a count of 18 cards.  I ordered a few and they arrived while I was in Indianapolis.  I cracked them open last night, and was pretty pleasantly surprised.  I’m not a huge trading card collector, but as someone who had his fair share as a kid, opening these packs brought back some very fun old school memories.  Each pack comes with three cards and a sheet of temporary tattoos, and even the tattoos themselves have some neat design aesthetics.

According to EnterPlay there are a total of 48 cards.  These include 39 cards of various scenes and characters throughout the film, and then 9 “character cards” which each have a segment of a movie poster on the back.  I didn’t get a complete collection with my purchase (which ended up being 3 “Party Packs” giving me 54 cards in total) but I was able to score a majority of the cards to complete the collection.  At $5.94 for 18 cards, it wasn’t all that cost-prohibitive either.

For you trading card collectors, or folks just looking to jog some old card collecting memories, I highly recommend picking up some of them from EnterPlay.  You even get some cool shots of obscure characters (like Clutch and Agent Mouse) and some more details behind some scenes that were cut from the final film (like the bar scene).  Check out my gallery of cards below, or if you want to buy some of the cards, hit up Enter-Play.com.

Then, once you get a bunch, let me know if you want to trade!  I need some, but I’m not sure I’m ready to make another $30 purchase.  :)

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A few more articles came through the Internet while I was in Indianapolis, and thanks to Twitziller for pointing them out.

On Flickering Myth, they take a massive and extremely in depth look at many of the effects used throughout the G.I. Joe: Retaliation film.  This is a huge article but has some really cool information about the film and what was required to get some of these visual effects  implemented.

On the Art of VFX site, they speak with Bill George who was the VFX Supervisor from Industrial Light and Magic.  They look mostly at the mountain battle sequence and London’s destruction, but there is some other insight throughout the article as well.

Good stuff here.

Shortly before the G.I. Joe Convention, Slashfilm.com had performed a marathon “FilmAid” broadcast, a 10 hour marathon to raise funds for the FilmAid charity.  Part of this marathon was a great interactive interview with G.I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon Chu.

No worries, you don’t have to listen to all 10 hours, if you just want to hear Jon Chu, Slashfilm has posted just the Chu segment right here.  The segment is almost half an hour long, and is very entertaining and provides some excellent insight into the film.

Kudos to Slashfilm for their work on this and for raising over $10,000 for this great charity, and thanks to Twitziller for letting me know this was online.

Cruising around the web on my post G.I. Joe Convention tour, I found a great article from Forbes.com speaking specifically about G.I. Joe: Retaliation and how well Paramount handled the marketing and development of the film.  While the person writing the article has no real love for the film itself, he provides some excellent insight into the box office so far, and lays out great groundwork for when a film really starts making money.

His perspective on the rocky road for G.I. Joe: Retaliation is very honest, very fair, and even though he’s not a fan of the movie, it sounds like Paramount made the right move in doing what they did, and the result has been fantastic financially.

Yes, we were all lamenting the nine month delay (believe me, I was among the most vocal) but turns out that 3D conversion and how it impacted the foreign market may have just salvaged the G.I. Joe brand and nearly guaranteed a third film.  Check out the article on Forbes.com.

As the G.I. Joe Convention winds to a close in Indianapolis, G.I. Joe: Retaliation continues to gain momentum world wide.  With a first weekend box office of a very healthy $132M, Paramount had already greenlit development 0n a third film.  Now, just over a week later, Box Office Mojo reports that the latest G.I. Joe motion picture has topped over $230M worldwide.

Hitting about $87M domestically and a whopping $141.2M internationally, G.I. Joe: Retaliation continues to provide a backdrop for the G.I. Joe mythology going forward.  Big props to Jon M Chu, Paramount, and everyone involved in the production, who gambled on a nine month delay, but evidently the gamble has paid off.

Check out the full report at Box Office Mojo.

Good afternoon from Indianapolis, and welcome to the 2013 G.I. Joe Convention Hasbro Seminar coverage!

I’m sure the news is out there by now that Hasbro did not bring any new product or new concepts to reveal at this year’s convention. While this has caused some concern among the fandom, rest assured, things are not DOA and the line is not in dire straits.

The early positive buzz from the G.I. Joe: Retaliation film has already encouraged Paramount to green light a third film, and Hasbro is reacting to that as we speak. The results have driven Hasbro to greatly increase production for Wave 3 and 4 product, and placed those orders to their factories. As a result of the increased production requests, unfortunately the release of Wave 3 will be pushed back slightly from May, 2013 to late July or August, 2013. The pessimist would say that this is a bad thing, but personally I’d rather wait an extra 4 – 6 weeks to ensure that enough product is made and distributed to ensure allocation to everyone who wants it.

For the rest of the report on the 2013 G.I. Joe Convention Hasbro seminar, click the Read the Rest of the Story link below.

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This artwork looks to be focusing mostly on characters and character costumes, but is just as awesome as previous artwork shown.  We see the origins of Cobra Commander, Flint, Snake Eyes, and many others through a series of great images from Constantine Sekeris.

Another big thanks to Twitziller for keying me into these.  Really gorgeous looking stuff, and some stuff that might have looked pretty darn awesome in live action form.

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