At this point, we branched off and started talking to Chu about his development on a movie based on Masters of the Universe which you can read by clicking here, but then we returned to G.I. Joe since he thinks that movie might go first.
SHH: You mentioned that a lot about the sequel will depend on Dwayne’s schedule, so he’s definitely on board to do another movie?
Chu: I mean, I can’t confirm or deny those reports, but yeah we’re continuing and of course The Rock is our leader and he really displays what G.I. Joe is and what the future G.I. Joe will be, but we’re trying to figure all that stuff out right now.
SHH: One of the good things about this next movie is that you’re on board early on as opposed to “Retaliation” where they already had a script done before you came on to direct. Have you already been talking to Hasbro and to writers about which characters you want to bring back?
Chu: Oh yeah. It’s been fun to play around with all the different possibilities. Now that I’m starting from the ground up, it’s a lot more fun actually. I can pull things out from random references to things that I’ve always wanted to see in person and I’m really excited to play within that sandbox.
SHH: When was the last time you read through the comic series or watched the cartoons to find stuff?
Chu: I actually have a cheat sheet, the “Now You Know” book that I go through all the time, and it literally walks me through the cartoons, the comic books, the character cards that you can get all in one place instead of trying to read one thing and then another thing and then it get confusing, especially because some of them are not consistent with each other, so this sort of helps organize the whole thing and it comes in a nice, tight little book so there’s a couple things I get to use as my cheat sheet to remind myself what happened and where and how it all unfolded.
SHH: I’m sure the cool people at Hasbro have a lot of ideas of which characters they want to introduce, too.
Chu: Yes, for sure, and I can always call them and say, “Do you think it would be cool if we do a new B-Kat or something?” and they’ll go “Yeah, we got this really cool…. You can come to our room and see all the different designs we ever had and the history of how we got there.” Or a character they’re working on now. “Oh, that’s a good idea for a character and we can cross-pollinate that way.”
SHH: A friend asked me to ask you whether or not there are any plans to bring in the Crimson Twins, Tomax and Xamot, but I’m not sure if he asked me as a joke to set me up for some sort of crazy answer or not.
Chu: (laughs) I think he’s being serious. We get a lot of that. We get a ton of the Crimson Twins all the time. There are several character that we get a ton of. I don’t know why people love these twins, but they go berserk for them, but yes we get that comment a lot.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation is available on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, July 30.
