I have been waiting for this interview for over a year. G.I. Joe: Retaliation was my most anticipated movie of 2012. I have no childhood attachment to the toys or cartoons, but I just wanted to see The Rock and Bruce Willis play G.I. Joe. Paramount decided to push the release until this year to convert the film to 3D, and rumors abounded that they were shooting additional scenes with Channing Tatum.
John M. Chu directed the sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Tatum returns as Duke, but hands over the reigns to new Joes like Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and Flint (DJ Cotrona). Action legend Bruce Willis shows up as Joe Colton, the retired Joe to whom our heroes turn in a crisis. Rumors of more Tatum proved false. I only suspected two scenes of being reshoots, and they are early in the film. Still, spoiler alert for the interview if you dont want to know any more than that about Tatums role in the film.
Chu already had a high pedigree as a film director. He directed Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D, a series that just gets more and more successful. Even more surprisingly, his concert documentary Justin Bieber: Never Say Never was a hit at the cinemas, and acclaimed by even Bieber illiterate critics.
His next film will be based on another popular toy and cartoon from the 80s, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Tentatively titled Grayskull, as in Castle Grayskull, expect a much more ambitious movie than the Dolph Lundgren starring Masters of the Universe. We spoke with Chu by phone as he prepared to release his latest action movie, perhaps nine months overdue, but still brimming with enthusiasm through the static of the cell towers.
SuicideGirls: Is this what G.I. Joe should have been all along? Get The Rock and Bruce Willis to play G.I. Joe, not some young guys.
John M. Chu: I think this is the power of G.I. Joe is it means different things to different people. For me, this was the ultimate cast to be able to do that with. Obviously, who defines an action figure better than anyone or makes kids want to aspire to be something bigger than life than Dwayne The Rock Johnson? And whos the only person who can stand up to Dwayne and say, Youre not man enough. Its not about the laser guns and hovercraft, but its about who you are, the human being and a soldier than Bruce Willis, the legend? So I was very blessed to have an amazing cast to communicate that tone.
SG: But its also the one thing a movie can do that other formats cant. You can adapt the characters and the stories, but to actually have icons play them is something uniquely cinematic.
JC: Yes, thats actually a great point. We talk as much as we want about the script and how we wanted to do a certain tone, it really isnt defined until you have that soul behind it. So immediately when we asked Dwayne, and even our initial conversations, we knew if we got Dwayne, if we got Bruce, half the job was done for us. They embody those things that G.I. Joe stands for, especially the idea of Joe. The average Joe can be the hero. Its not about all the other stuff. Its a guy making a choice to defend the people he loves and stand up for what he believes in. And you want to have a beer with them. You want to hang out with them and then they can go out of the bar, fight for the world, save it, come back and finish the beer. I think thats such an essential part of what G.I. Joe means.
SG: Youre right, thats been Bruce for 25 years now.
JC: Exactly.
SG: I think once Bruce and Dwayne were cast, everyone assumed Channing Tatum would have a smaller role in this film. When rumors came out that they were shooting more Channing, where did that come from and what did you make of that nonsense?
JC: It was hard because it was a time when we had just been delayed to turn it into 3D and we literally turned to each other and were like, This movie can be better if we turn it 3D. Literally, our point was to take the audience on a crazy cinematic worldwide adventure with ninjas and Dwayne and Bruce. Itll make the movie better. Why turn away from it and try to rush this out? When the rumors came out that were adding more Channing, were doing all this stuff, we couldnt respond because there was no way we were going to win against these things. Especially when Im on Twitter and Im very active and trying to listen to people and all this stuff, I literally just left Twitter for two weeks. I couldnt deal with it. We just kept out heads to the ground and said, We have a lot of work to do to get the 3D done. 3000 shots, 700 artists, frame by frame and now we have a lot more pressure to make sure the 3D is done right and enhances our movie in every single way. It was more emotional than actually anything physical. It was just sort of frustrating to see how people can take a story and just keep going and going and going with it, and the less you say, the more you go with it.
SG: Once you made the decision to have Channing turn it over to the new guys, were you sort of battling Channings popularity? Because it was right at the point where he exploded with Magic Mike and people might have wanted to see more Channing in a movie.
JC: Yeah, I think we all love Channing. I think that hes an amazing actor and the camaraderie he has with Rock is really fun. Ultimately, the reason we made the decision in the first place was one, to shock the audience. Its just fun to take a main character and say, Oh, hes no longer there. But more so also its to create real stakes for these guys, that no matter how crazy we get, nobodys safe. Anyone can go at any time. As self-conscious as that is, its just to set up danger is real in this world. Then that allows us to go really far with the other characters and go as fantasy as we can. Yeah, it was difficult because at the time we shot the stuff, he wasnt the Channing that he is now. When we started closing up the first time, he became a humongous star and hes till a humongous star but its not as fiery as it was after those kind of movies come out all in a row and youre right in the pit of it. So I think its calmed down just a little bit for us to squeeze in there and shock people without offending people.
SG: I guess there could be the other side that the Magic Mike fans might not want to see him go back and do a sequel to G.I. Joe.
JC: Yes, exactly. I wouldve done a shirt off sequence or something if I knew Magic Mike was going to be a big hit like that, just for the audience. To be able to bring their wives or girlfriends.
SG: Were the scene where Duke plays video games with Roadblock and the cupcake shooting scene some additional footage you were able to shoot during the delay?
JC: We didnt reshoot anything during the delay. This is the exact same movie from the delay. Previously, about five months prior to that, we did shoot the video game scene. The cupcake was already done when we were shooting the movie, but the video game scene we shot only because we had a bar scene that just wasnt funny enough. We really wanted people to buy into their brotherhood and because they were so good comedically, we wanted people to get the joke that this movie was funny and playful from the very beginning, because if you didnt buy into that joke, I think you could get lost in the tone real quick. We shot that literally five months before any delay, when we were still on schedule.
SG: Tone is actually my next question. Its a pet peeve of mine, but do you find that too many action movies are constrained by realism, like a Bourne movie or something like that. I cant think of anything less realistic than an action movie. Obviously there are some great ones but do you feel too many action movies are censoring themselves for realism, and was it fun to have a G.I. Joe movie where anything goes?
JC: Yeah, its hard to speak for other movies and what the intention of the director or the studio is trying to do, or the writers with the tone of those movies. I love those movies. Im fascinated by those movies. I think they have their place and stuff, but I do think that sometimes we do take ourselves too seriously. What I loved about growing up on action/adventure movies was going to see Indiana Jones and having humor in it and having it be ridiculous. Because its on the big screen, you get to experience this whole other world that you would never get to experience. And then Id go home and be able to play with the toys and create my own stories, which Im convinced thats where I grew to love storytelling actually, was my toys. Even watching Batman in the 80s and getting literally every single toy, the Batmobile, and then having these week-long adventures. I love, love, love that. So I do feel like sometimes we lose a little bit of that fun in our movies now but with G.I. Joe we had permission to. I would hope that the fans of G.I. Joe expected us to go crazy on it. Did we struggle with that tone? Yes. We always have to find that balance of we wanted the threats to be real, but we wanted to go far with it with ninjas flying in the air and Dwayne with a giant gun and Bruce making little quips while hes killing people. That was something hard I think for the studio to digest sometimes and for us to say, Are we crazy that we think this is funny and fun? Or is this going to work with todays audience? I think that was always a question. I think its still up in the air and I cant wait for more people to see it to see how they take it, but for me movies these days, when youre watching on your iPhone and your iPad, those are great. But why I love movies is going to the big screen, having it loud and screaming and cheering with the audience and bringing your dates and your friends and your family to go watch it. Because our movies in 3D as well, and when you have big movie stars, Dwayne and Bruce, who can carry that banner, who can actually bring that event style moviemaking back to the big screen, is so fun and we were very blessed to have that.
SG: On the realism thing, I was even thinking on the audience level more than the studio. The studio is delivering whats expected, but it does seem recently audience have demanded more realism than fantasy, even in, of all things, superhero movies.
JC: Yeah, maybe. I thought Avengers was fun and crazy and didnt try to make things too serious in there and I thought they did a good job. Yeah, maybe its hard to speak for the exact audience other than I do think audiences still love to have fun and if we can help set it up so that they dont have to try to make sense of every little detail in our storytelling, I think that was a challenge that we had to do which is actually why we shot that video game scene, to help paint that picture. Maybe thats just a little bit more work on the filmmaking side to help set up those expectations for the audience.
SG: Its something Ive dealt with my whole life as a movie fan because I discovered Hong Kong movies where theyre really not bound by realism. Then when they tried to do that here, American audiences rejected it unless it was The Matrix and I would say, No, anything can happen in a movie. We should want that.
JC: Yes, I totally agree. When I watched Kung Fu Hustle, I love, love that, that it just has this crazy sense of humor but is really funny. You dont get caught up in all that stuff. I do think we had an advantage by having it be G.I. Joe. When you throw in ninjas, as that point youre just like, Wait, okay, if ninjas are there and they have guns and theyre fighting, whatever. We have a little advantage.
SG: You had just done two 3D movies. When you shot G.I. Joe: Retaliation without 3D and they changed their mind, were you like, Dude...?
JC: [Laughs] I probably said Dude many, many times. But yes and no. We definitely knew that this would play to our strengths. We knew that we had a responsibility. The whole idea from the very beginning was to immerse the audience. It was just annoying because they wouldnt give us the resources and time when we were shooting. It was only after that they were like, Okay. But thank God they gave us the resources and time at the time that they did, and understood that if were delaying this for this reason, literally you have to give us enough time and money to do it right because people are going to expect it even more so now. Because Ive done a couple 3D movies and [producer] Lorenzo [di Bonaventura]s done 3D, our necks are on the line for it. So thank goodness that they put in that effort to make sure that we could do it right. Dimensionalizing is a whole other world than shooting it. Im shooting two movies in that I get to make the decisions of depth in storytelling while were shooting it. I see what the actor is doing and I get to have the depth play a character in that. In dimensionalizing we have to make that decision afterwards and we can actually make decisions based on the edit, not just of the scene within, so that was sort of a fun, freeing experience, but very, very different. I think I was lucky to have shot two other [3D] movies because depth was a part of my storytelling after working on those things for four years now, that even when I was shooting 2D, dealing with film 2D, that still was a part of the story. I think if we didnt have those types of shots in our movie, we wouldnt have said that 3D was the way to go with it in the edit.
SG: Do you think your Grayskull movie will be in 3D?
JC: At this point I would assume that it would be 3D. If not, Ill be like, No guys, seriously, it should probably be 3D right now. It begs for it. We have worlds, we have crazy things that should be and I hope we do, but at the end of the day if were not going to get the resources then we wont.
SG: The last time they made a He-Man movie, they brought him to earth and that movie has surprising parallels to the Transformers movie. This time do you think you can keep He-Man on his own world?
JC: Well, its very early on. We dont do what that movie does, let me put it that way. We really try to create a world that we can relate to but thats not necessarily [ours]. I cant necessarily say how we approach the movie other than it is very different than that first movie and I think what were trying to create is a very rich world thats still relatable to ours but not our world per se.
SG: I mention the Dolph Lundgren movie as a lark, and I enjoy what it was, but as a He-Man fan from the 80s, weve been waiting for a real He-Man movie.
JC: Oh, Ive been waiting forever too. Were in a really fun stage right now where were just creating the world and were painting the world and were designing the world and were making a lot of mistakes so we know where not to go, and were just finding our footing right now. So its a pretty fun stage when you have 20 different versions of Battle Cat and youre like, All right, how are we going to make this the best Battle Cat?
SG: And deciding which characters will be in it?
JC: Yes, yes. Weve been playing around with a bunch of them but you should expect the classics I think. Then well go from there, add some crazy ones in the middle of it all.
SG: How much of your life was spent on Never Say Never, including subsequent directors cuts of that?
JC: We actually did it quickly. I want to say that was in eight or nine months from conception to delivery of the movie. I got to travel with him. It was literally like Almost Famous. Cameron Crowe did an amazing job with that movie because I literally related to that movie, even though I was older than him, being the kid on this crazy tour, not knowing anything about that world, not knowing anything about Justin Bieber and just being a fly on the wall on his bus. It was just me, his mom and his bodyguard on his bus, and just observing. It was one of the experiences that Ill never forget about bonding with him at that same point, watching his home videos which he hasnt even watched, which is a little bit weird but at the same time you just learn a lot about a person and we got to create this amazing, to me, just an experience of discovering who Justin was. That was fun because Paramount didnt know what to do with the movie so we got a lot of freedom to discover how to tell a story like this, that was not just a concert movie, that we could tell his story through this footage, which was really fun.
SG: How did you feel about the reception to it?
JC: I was very surprised with the reaction. I never thought anyone would see the movie. I just love making movies and telling stories in different ways, so it was just really an experiment and something to do.
SG: Thats why I know about Justin Bieber. Im 35. I would have just thought he was some guy the kids are into but I totally know his story now.
JC: Nice, nice. I think hes a good kid. I think all those things from that movie, we grew to know each other really well and have kept in touch. I think what makes him great is he doesnt pretend to be anything hes not. Maybe some of the marketing of what his music was does, but he himself is very true to who he is, and he will make mistakes and he will just be a kid and I think thats really relatable to a lot of his fans out there.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens March 29.
John M. Chu directed the sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Tatum returns as Duke, but hands over the reigns to new Joes like Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and Flint (DJ Cotrona). Action legend Bruce Willis shows up as Joe Colton, the retired Joe to whom our heroes turn in a crisis. Rumors of more Tatum proved false. I only suspected two scenes of being reshoots, and they are early in the film. Still, spoiler alert for the interview if you dont want to know any more than that about Tatums role in the film.
Chu already had a high pedigree as a film director. He directed Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D, a series that just gets more and more successful. Even more surprisingly, his concert documentary Justin Bieber: Never Say Never was a hit at the cinemas, and acclaimed by even Bieber illiterate critics.
His next film will be based on another popular toy and cartoon from the 80s, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Tentatively titled Grayskull, as in Castle Grayskull, expect a much more ambitious movie than the Dolph Lundgren starring Masters of the Universe. We spoke with Chu by phone as he prepared to release his latest action movie, perhaps nine months overdue, but still brimming with enthusiasm through the static of the cell towers.
SuicideGirls: Is this what G.I. Joe should have been all along? Get The Rock and Bruce Willis to play G.I. Joe, not some young guys.
John M. Chu: I think this is the power of G.I. Joe is it means different things to different people. For me, this was the ultimate cast to be able to do that with. Obviously, who defines an action figure better than anyone or makes kids want to aspire to be something bigger than life than Dwayne The Rock Johnson? And whos the only person who can stand up to Dwayne and say, Youre not man enough. Its not about the laser guns and hovercraft, but its about who you are, the human being and a soldier than Bruce Willis, the legend? So I was very blessed to have an amazing cast to communicate that tone.
SG: But its also the one thing a movie can do that other formats cant. You can adapt the characters and the stories, but to actually have icons play them is something uniquely cinematic.
JC: Yes, thats actually a great point. We talk as much as we want about the script and how we wanted to do a certain tone, it really isnt defined until you have that soul behind it. So immediately when we asked Dwayne, and even our initial conversations, we knew if we got Dwayne, if we got Bruce, half the job was done for us. They embody those things that G.I. Joe stands for, especially the idea of Joe. The average Joe can be the hero. Its not about all the other stuff. Its a guy making a choice to defend the people he loves and stand up for what he believes in. And you want to have a beer with them. You want to hang out with them and then they can go out of the bar, fight for the world, save it, come back and finish the beer. I think thats such an essential part of what G.I. Joe means.
SG: Youre right, thats been Bruce for 25 years now.
JC: Exactly.
SG: I think once Bruce and Dwayne were cast, everyone assumed Channing Tatum would have a smaller role in this film. When rumors came out that they were shooting more Channing, where did that come from and what did you make of that nonsense?
JC: It was hard because it was a time when we had just been delayed to turn it into 3D and we literally turned to each other and were like, This movie can be better if we turn it 3D. Literally, our point was to take the audience on a crazy cinematic worldwide adventure with ninjas and Dwayne and Bruce. Itll make the movie better. Why turn away from it and try to rush this out? When the rumors came out that were adding more Channing, were doing all this stuff, we couldnt respond because there was no way we were going to win against these things. Especially when Im on Twitter and Im very active and trying to listen to people and all this stuff, I literally just left Twitter for two weeks. I couldnt deal with it. We just kept out heads to the ground and said, We have a lot of work to do to get the 3D done. 3000 shots, 700 artists, frame by frame and now we have a lot more pressure to make sure the 3D is done right and enhances our movie in every single way. It was more emotional than actually anything physical. It was just sort of frustrating to see how people can take a story and just keep going and going and going with it, and the less you say, the more you go with it.
SG: Once you made the decision to have Channing turn it over to the new guys, were you sort of battling Channings popularity? Because it was right at the point where he exploded with Magic Mike and people might have wanted to see more Channing in a movie.
JC: Yeah, I think we all love Channing. I think that hes an amazing actor and the camaraderie he has with Rock is really fun. Ultimately, the reason we made the decision in the first place was one, to shock the audience. Its just fun to take a main character and say, Oh, hes no longer there. But more so also its to create real stakes for these guys, that no matter how crazy we get, nobodys safe. Anyone can go at any time. As self-conscious as that is, its just to set up danger is real in this world. Then that allows us to go really far with the other characters and go as fantasy as we can. Yeah, it was difficult because at the time we shot the stuff, he wasnt the Channing that he is now. When we started closing up the first time, he became a humongous star and hes till a humongous star but its not as fiery as it was after those kind of movies come out all in a row and youre right in the pit of it. So I think its calmed down just a little bit for us to squeeze in there and shock people without offending people.
SG: I guess there could be the other side that the Magic Mike fans might not want to see him go back and do a sequel to G.I. Joe.
JC: Yes, exactly. I wouldve done a shirt off sequence or something if I knew Magic Mike was going to be a big hit like that, just for the audience. To be able to bring their wives or girlfriends.
SG: Were the scene where Duke plays video games with Roadblock and the cupcake shooting scene some additional footage you were able to shoot during the delay?
JC: We didnt reshoot anything during the delay. This is the exact same movie from the delay. Previously, about five months prior to that, we did shoot the video game scene. The cupcake was already done when we were shooting the movie, but the video game scene we shot only because we had a bar scene that just wasnt funny enough. We really wanted people to buy into their brotherhood and because they were so good comedically, we wanted people to get the joke that this movie was funny and playful from the very beginning, because if you didnt buy into that joke, I think you could get lost in the tone real quick. We shot that literally five months before any delay, when we were still on schedule.
SG: Tone is actually my next question. Its a pet peeve of mine, but do you find that too many action movies are constrained by realism, like a Bourne movie or something like that. I cant think of anything less realistic than an action movie. Obviously there are some great ones but do you feel too many action movies are censoring themselves for realism, and was it fun to have a G.I. Joe movie where anything goes?
JC: Yeah, its hard to speak for other movies and what the intention of the director or the studio is trying to do, or the writers with the tone of those movies. I love those movies. Im fascinated by those movies. I think they have their place and stuff, but I do think that sometimes we do take ourselves too seriously. What I loved about growing up on action/adventure movies was going to see Indiana Jones and having humor in it and having it be ridiculous. Because its on the big screen, you get to experience this whole other world that you would never get to experience. And then Id go home and be able to play with the toys and create my own stories, which Im convinced thats where I grew to love storytelling actually, was my toys. Even watching Batman in the 80s and getting literally every single toy, the Batmobile, and then having these week-long adventures. I love, love, love that. So I do feel like sometimes we lose a little bit of that fun in our movies now but with G.I. Joe we had permission to. I would hope that the fans of G.I. Joe expected us to go crazy on it. Did we struggle with that tone? Yes. We always have to find that balance of we wanted the threats to be real, but we wanted to go far with it with ninjas flying in the air and Dwayne with a giant gun and Bruce making little quips while hes killing people. That was something hard I think for the studio to digest sometimes and for us to say, Are we crazy that we think this is funny and fun? Or is this going to work with todays audience? I think that was always a question. I think its still up in the air and I cant wait for more people to see it to see how they take it, but for me movies these days, when youre watching on your iPhone and your iPad, those are great. But why I love movies is going to the big screen, having it loud and screaming and cheering with the audience and bringing your dates and your friends and your family to go watch it. Because our movies in 3D as well, and when you have big movie stars, Dwayne and Bruce, who can carry that banner, who can actually bring that event style moviemaking back to the big screen, is so fun and we were very blessed to have that.
SG: On the realism thing, I was even thinking on the audience level more than the studio. The studio is delivering whats expected, but it does seem recently audience have demanded more realism than fantasy, even in, of all things, superhero movies.
JC: Yeah, maybe. I thought Avengers was fun and crazy and didnt try to make things too serious in there and I thought they did a good job. Yeah, maybe its hard to speak for the exact audience other than I do think audiences still love to have fun and if we can help set it up so that they dont have to try to make sense of every little detail in our storytelling, I think that was a challenge that we had to do which is actually why we shot that video game scene, to help paint that picture. Maybe thats just a little bit more work on the filmmaking side to help set up those expectations for the audience.
SG: Its something Ive dealt with my whole life as a movie fan because I discovered Hong Kong movies where theyre really not bound by realism. Then when they tried to do that here, American audiences rejected it unless it was The Matrix and I would say, No, anything can happen in a movie. We should want that.
JC: Yes, I totally agree. When I watched Kung Fu Hustle, I love, love that, that it just has this crazy sense of humor but is really funny. You dont get caught up in all that stuff. I do think we had an advantage by having it be G.I. Joe. When you throw in ninjas, as that point youre just like, Wait, okay, if ninjas are there and they have guns and theyre fighting, whatever. We have a little advantage.
SG: You had just done two 3D movies. When you shot G.I. Joe: Retaliation without 3D and they changed their mind, were you like, Dude...?
JC: [Laughs] I probably said Dude many, many times. But yes and no. We definitely knew that this would play to our strengths. We knew that we had a responsibility. The whole idea from the very beginning was to immerse the audience. It was just annoying because they wouldnt give us the resources and time when we were shooting. It was only after that they were like, Okay. But thank God they gave us the resources and time at the time that they did, and understood that if were delaying this for this reason, literally you have to give us enough time and money to do it right because people are going to expect it even more so now. Because Ive done a couple 3D movies and [producer] Lorenzo [di Bonaventura]s done 3D, our necks are on the line for it. So thank goodness that they put in that effort to make sure that we could do it right. Dimensionalizing is a whole other world than shooting it. Im shooting two movies in that I get to make the decisions of depth in storytelling while were shooting it. I see what the actor is doing and I get to have the depth play a character in that. In dimensionalizing we have to make that decision afterwards and we can actually make decisions based on the edit, not just of the scene within, so that was sort of a fun, freeing experience, but very, very different. I think I was lucky to have shot two other [3D] movies because depth was a part of my storytelling after working on those things for four years now, that even when I was shooting 2D, dealing with film 2D, that still was a part of the story. I think if we didnt have those types of shots in our movie, we wouldnt have said that 3D was the way to go with it in the edit.
SG: Do you think your Grayskull movie will be in 3D?
JC: At this point I would assume that it would be 3D. If not, Ill be like, No guys, seriously, it should probably be 3D right now. It begs for it. We have worlds, we have crazy things that should be and I hope we do, but at the end of the day if were not going to get the resources then we wont.
SG: The last time they made a He-Man movie, they brought him to earth and that movie has surprising parallels to the Transformers movie. This time do you think you can keep He-Man on his own world?
JC: Well, its very early on. We dont do what that movie does, let me put it that way. We really try to create a world that we can relate to but thats not necessarily [ours]. I cant necessarily say how we approach the movie other than it is very different than that first movie and I think what were trying to create is a very rich world thats still relatable to ours but not our world per se.
SG: I mention the Dolph Lundgren movie as a lark, and I enjoy what it was, but as a He-Man fan from the 80s, weve been waiting for a real He-Man movie.
JC: Oh, Ive been waiting forever too. Were in a really fun stage right now where were just creating the world and were painting the world and were designing the world and were making a lot of mistakes so we know where not to go, and were just finding our footing right now. So its a pretty fun stage when you have 20 different versions of Battle Cat and youre like, All right, how are we going to make this the best Battle Cat?
SG: And deciding which characters will be in it?
JC: Yes, yes. Weve been playing around with a bunch of them but you should expect the classics I think. Then well go from there, add some crazy ones in the middle of it all.
SG: How much of your life was spent on Never Say Never, including subsequent directors cuts of that?
JC: We actually did it quickly. I want to say that was in eight or nine months from conception to delivery of the movie. I got to travel with him. It was literally like Almost Famous. Cameron Crowe did an amazing job with that movie because I literally related to that movie, even though I was older than him, being the kid on this crazy tour, not knowing anything about that world, not knowing anything about Justin Bieber and just being a fly on the wall on his bus. It was just me, his mom and his bodyguard on his bus, and just observing. It was one of the experiences that Ill never forget about bonding with him at that same point, watching his home videos which he hasnt even watched, which is a little bit weird but at the same time you just learn a lot about a person and we got to create this amazing, to me, just an experience of discovering who Justin was. That was fun because Paramount didnt know what to do with the movie so we got a lot of freedom to discover how to tell a story like this, that was not just a concert movie, that we could tell his story through this footage, which was really fun.
SG: How did you feel about the reception to it?
JC: I was very surprised with the reaction. I never thought anyone would see the movie. I just love making movies and telling stories in different ways, so it was just really an experiment and something to do.
SG: Thats why I know about Justin Bieber. Im 35. I would have just thought he was some guy the kids are into but I totally know his story now.
JC: Nice, nice. I think hes a good kid. I think all those things from that movie, we grew to know each other really well and have kept in touch. I think what makes him great is he doesnt pretend to be anything hes not. Maybe some of the marketing of what his music was does, but he himself is very true to who he is, and he will make mistakes and he will just be a kid and I think thats really relatable to a lot of his fans out there.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens March 29.