© (C) 2009 Paramount Pictures Channing Tatum in G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA

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Exclusive Interview: SCREENWRITER STUART BEATTIE TOYS WITH 'G.I. JOE' FOR THE BIG SCREEN

The PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL writer is also behind the scripts for SPY HUNTER, HALO and TARZAN

By CARL CORTEZ, Contributing Editor
Published 8/7/2009

Screenwriter Stuart Beattie doesn’t make it easy on himself. One of his first big challenges of his career was to adapt Disneyland’s seminal Pirates of the Caribbean amusement part ride into a feature film. Luckily, he hit lightening in a bottle creating an uber-successful film and a billion dollar franchise in the process.

So when it came time to take on a franchise like G.I. JOE, which began life as a toy line in 1964, it was just as daunting of a task.

“I think a movie can have anything as its source material,” says Beattie. “I’m not at all a snob about wherever you get your stories from. It can be a theme park ride or toy line. It could be anything. I just go, ‘what’s the world, what are the characters.’ It’s kind of weird to think ‘how do you get a movie out of a toy line.’ To me it’s all about character and story. It’s a fun world to be in. I take it all seriously. With PIRATES, it was like ‘how does this work?’ And same with G.I. JOE, I think it’s no matter what the source material is, you have to take it seriously. You can still create a fun movie with it, but you have to ground it in reality and emotional truths.”

The end result of his work is the film G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA which hits theaters today. It’s directed by THE MUMMY’s Stephen Sommers as it follows a covert government team called G.I. Joe who does battle with the nefarious group Cobra.

Beattie spoke with iF in this exclusive interview about the process of bringing JOE to screen and the other projects he has in the hopper.

iF MAGAZINE: When did you get involved in G.I. JOE?

STUART BEATTIE: About September of 2007, [producer] Lorenzo di Bonaventura asked if I wanted to write the movie and I said yes.

iF: They’ve tried to get this project off the ground for years. Why do you think it’s been so hard to get it in shape and finally get it to the screen?

BEATTIE: I’m not sure, because I wasn’t involved in any of the previous incarnations. The scripts didn’t work for one reason or another and they told me to start from scratch and that’s what I did.

iF: Obviously though, you have this iconic franchise, there must be some pitfalls into nailing the final take.

BEATTIE: The big thing for me was to create a story that was unique to the G.I. JOE world and that could only exist in a G.I. JOE movie and characters that could only exist in a G.I. JOE movie. Some of the big pitfalls were just making sure I didn’t create a plot that was generic in any way and that could work in any other action movie. I wanted it to be something that came from the unique world of G.I. JOE and immediately recognizable. At the same time, when you write a movie, you’re not just writing it for people who are familiar with the property, you have to write a film that can initiate a whole new audience into that world. I guess those were the two main factors – making a G.I. JOE movie and writing it for people who didn’t know G.I. JOE .

iF: One of the things I find interesting is most people not familiar with the franchise think G.I. JOE is a character, not an organization. Is this something you tried to address in the movie?

BEATTIE: Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s because it’s Joe. You think, he’s a G.I. and he’s Joe. I can see where people get the idea from. Very much from the beginning, it was let’s make sure that people know G.I. Joe is a unit and it’s not a person. That’s the unofficial name of their group.

iF: Is there any era of the toys, comics or animated series that you gravitated toward?

BEATTIE: I started with the core group. I was very familiar with the property when I was called in. I knew who had to be in the movie to make it a G.I. JOE movie. I started with them and maybe added one or two and pulled them from the mythology some more obscure characters that fit the narrative. As much as possible, you can’t say “let’s have all these people and create a story around them.” You have to come up with a story first, and select characters that best serve that narrative. While I had to have certain core characters in there, there were other characters who were more fringe characters that really worked for the story. So I introduced those characters for that reason. You had to have Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Hawk, Duke, Destro, Storm Shadow – but beyond that core group it’s what best suits your narrative.

iF: What did director Stephen Sommers bring to the mix – especially since he normally writes the  scripts he directs

BEATTIE: Halfway through production he said, “this is really fun, I’ll have you write all my scripts from now on. I never knew how good it was to have a writer on set.” He didn’t have time to write it. When he came on to it, right before me, we had to be in production within a few months. There was no time for him to write the script, which is why I got called. Stephen brings a fun, visual ride to it. His sense of pacing is terrific, his sense of the characters is phenomenal. His sense of action and geography is fantastic – he just kind of sets the tone and mood and really makes it fun to be there every day. It’s fun to watch him work. It’s fun to be on set writing lines for him.

iF: Did you play with G.I. JOE toys as a kid?

BEATTIE: Not really. I grew up in Australia, we didn’t really have it here. I got into it in 2000 when I got the bibles for G.I. JOE. I was asked to write a G.I. JOE movie ten years ago, so I read everything and fell in love with it then. I kept all that material on the shelf. When I got the call, I knew it very, very well. I played with STAR WARS figures.

iF: Were there any mandates from the toy company saying they needed certain things in the movie?

BEATTIE: I don’t know if it was the case of they didn’t have the time or trusted that I understood the world and characters, but I never met anyone from Hasbro until the second or third day from set. I had no guidelines from them. I’m sure if I went too far off the beaten track, someone would have reigned me back in. I knew the world and characters so well, I knew the parameters going in. I knew what I could and couldn’t do. They were happy with it.

iF: What could you and couldn’t do in your head?

BEATTIE: It had to do with keeping the core characters, having a unique G.I. JOE plot, cool technology, cool vehicles and modern day setting. All the things that were core G.I. JOE things, I had to use. In terms of what not to do, I didn’t want to start killing off all these characters that were so beloved. I didn’t want Snake Eyes talking. I didn’t want to break any of the major conventions of G.I. JOE. I wanted it to be in that world and be real. I didn’t want to change the sex of any character or change affiliations of any character. It stayed within the parameters. I didn’t want to mess with it that much. I wanted to tell a story within the world and not break out of the world – otherwise, what’s the point?

iF: TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN is your directorial debut -- could you talk about it?

BEATTIE: It’s based on a best-selling series of books called THE TOMORROW SERIES by John Marsden. It’s about these seven or eight teenagers who live in this small country town and camp in over the hills of far away while they’re on school holiday before their last year in high school. And they find that while they were away, their whole country got invaded. Now they’re on the run, they have to band together and fight for themselves It’s a wonderful series of books and really great characters and lots of terrific nail biting action. I started out directing short films and I’ve been looking for something to get back to directing. These books came along and it was everything and more.

iF: What’s the status of HALO?

BEATTIE: I turned in a draft, but there was no one [i.e. a studio] to turn a draft to. Microsoft needs to be a powerful filmmaker to give us those keys. I’m talking to powerful filmmakers to get them interested, because I think that would be a fantastic film.

iF: What about TARZAN?

BEATTIE: I wrote that with Stephen [Sommers]. It’s at Warner Bros. There’s a disagreement about the budget. They’re trying to work that out? Stephen and I have a total short hand. We developed the concept last year. I know exactly what he wants. A lot of last year was figuring out what he wants, so by the time I got to TARZAN, I knew exactly what to do. The classic story of TARZAN has been done so many times and done well so many times, there’s no point in doing it better -- so why bother. So it was for us, crafting, a big jungle, romantic action epic and set it in the world of Tarzan – that mythic Africa where the trees are twice as big and a whole world exists in the jungle canopy and Tarzan is this wild guy. It’s not loin clothes and “me Tarzan and you Jane” and no dialogue with a bunch of gorillas. You take those traits and you craft a great fun story around that. It’s something people haven’t seen before.

iF:  Is it set in present day?

BEATTIE: It’s set in 1930.

iF: SPY HUNTER – is that still happening?

BEATTIE: I think Warner Bros. bought all the Midway games.  I worked a script very hard with Dwayne Johnson. I loved that script. I hope one day they can make it. It’s going to take a pretty big filmmakers. It’s a big summer movie. It’s a car that changes into all sorts of stuff. It has three great car chase in all parts of the world. I would like to see it done one day. Maybe they’ll let me do it one day if it’s still around, but it’s looking for a filmmaker.

iF: Now that JOE is complete, do you have ideas in your head of where a sequel might go?

BEATTIE: We only really concentrated on this movie and getting this movie right. You always have fantasies of what you would like to do if you got the chance to do it again. There are so many great characters and vehicles and storylines. There are endless ways to go. There are a bunch of characters I’d like to bring in like Shipwreck, Wild Bill, Major Blood and the Dreadnoughts. I would love to get Cobra Island in there. There’s a bunch of stuff I would like to do if we were lucky enough to get a chance to do it again. It’s up to the people at Paramount and how well it does.

iF: What do you say to the die-hard fans to convince them to see this movie?

BEATTIE: I would say it’s written by someone who loves the world of G.I. JOE and took it seriously and tried to put out the most fun G.I. JOE movie I could think of. Everyone worked as hard as they could and in really horrible conditions. We had no prep, no work on the script for three months. From Day 1 of shooting, we worked around the clock to make it the best possible film we could make it. I hope they appreciate that and know that it was well loved and well cared for and that they’ll have fun with it.

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8/7/2009 4:32:08 PM

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