So the second one, I just obviously didn’t want to be in that one either.”Hence the rather anticlimactic sendoff to Duke, who in one scene is palling around with Johnson as they play Call of Duty and dote on Roadblock’s daughters, and in the next is totally vaporized right before Roadblock’s eyes. “The first one I passed on seven times but they had an option on me, so I had to do the movie. And with the polygraph still attached to his arm, he shrugged when asked if he regretted the decision. While being submitted to a lie detector test by Vanity Fair, Tatum simply said “yes,” when asked if he demanded Duke’s death at the start of that movie. More recently, Tatum has admitted that he deliberately set up Duke’s death in G.I. Joe.” He said he even offered to play Snake Eyes instead of Duke, but Paramount wanted him in the lead role.

I didn’t want to do something that I thought was 1) bad, and 2) I just didn’t know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe movie, Tatum felt less than enthused. However, when it came time to make a G.I. “ Coach Carter, they signed me for a three-picture deal… and as a young, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, that sounds amazing, I’m doing that!’” “I was pushed into doing that movie,” Tatum explained. Still, it seemed likely that, even then, his entire opinion of the franchise was soured by the fact he felt forced into the series by Paramount Pictures. He was also specifically unloading on the first G.I. At the time, he was speaking with Howard Stern (via Variety) about how his career had pivoted from action franchises to something a little more personal with the Magic Mike series. I fucking hate that movie,” Tatum said in 2015. But as Tatum has intermittently revealed to the press over the years, Duke dying after only four scenes is the price Paramount had to pay to get Tatum back in the series. For audiences then, or discovering it now on Netflix, the turn of fate is a little jarring. In less time than the opening sequence of a Michael Bay Transformers flick, the guy who saved the world in the 2009 movie and incredulously turned the Baroness (Sienna Miller) into a hero is now roadkill as Johnson’s Roadblock assumes lead position.

Twist me the complete trilogy