Henry Golding's Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is coming sooner than we thought
It’s always fun when a licensed film kind of comes out of nowhere. With the Star Wars sequels and Marvel movies, we always kind of know they’re happening, even as the studios involved are very tight-lipped about every little development, but some movies that would’ve once demanded constant attention are now so commonplace that it’s easy to forget they’re even coming. Case in point: The last thing we heard about Paramount’s plan to make a G.I. Joe spin-off about silent ninja character Snake Eyes was in the summer of 2019 when Henry Golding—fresh off of Crazy Rich Asians at the time—was “in talks” to star in the film. Since then, Golding’s casting worked out, other people were cast alongside him, and also the movie got made and is now ready to be released. Time flies when you’re distracted by a global pandemic!
Anyway, the movie is now officially titled Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (not to be confused with X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and in what seems like an encouragingly confident movie, Paramount and Hasbro have decided to move it up from October 22 to July 23. This comes from Deadline, which notes that these G.I. Joe movies tend to “play younger” (they’re based on toys) so a summer release will probably be more beneficial. This summer won’t be like every other summer, though, so it’ll be interesting to see how anything fares at the box office after a year of theaters being closed.
Other than Golding as Snake Eyes, the film stars Samara Weaving as Scarlett, Úrsula Corberó as the Baroness, and Andrew Koji as Storm Shadow. Assuming it takes place in the same timeline as the other Joe movies, which is not a given, big-name villains like Cobra Commander and Destro probably won’t show up—though it should be stated that nobody cares too much about the other movies, so it would be totally fine for either of them to appear.