Snake Eyes Star Gets Real About The G.I. Joe Spinoff Flopping, But Says He ‘Knew’ It Was Coming
Remember the Snake Eyes movie? The G.I. Joe spinoff came out in the summer of 2021 to poor reviews from critics overall and a disappointing box office haul. Now that it's been some time since the flop was released, one of the film’s stars, Andrew Koji, got honest about his thoughts about the movie, and he doesn’t exactly sound passionate about the role.
Andrew Koji played the role of Tommy/Storm Shadow, who is the heir of the Arashikage clan and the friend-turned-enemy of the titular Snake Eyes, whom Henry Golding played. When recently reflecting on the high-profile action movie as the third season of his popular series Warrior recently rolled out, here’s what he had to say:
Snake Eyes didn't do too well, which I knew it wasn't going to. I think they're probably going to reboot from the ground up. I'm cool. I did like Storm Shadow Tommy. I found a way to love him and I think there would've been something to do … there would've been a really cool Storm Shadow film if they did it right.
Per the actor’s interview with Inverse, Andrew Koji already had an inkling that Snake Eyes would not be a big hit before the box office numbers and reviews came in. Koji continued to discuss his thoughts on the movie with these words:
After this, it could just all be downhill for me. But at least for now [my experience on Warrior] makes me go, OK, I'd like to do stuff with integrity. And G.I. Joe really wasn't that, was it?
Apparently there was something in the air about Snake Eyes just not being it while Andrew Koji was making it, and it had everything to do with the movie’s lack of “integrity.” His opinion isn’t far off from the consensus of audiences, considering the movie was called things like “middling,” “boring” and “unoriginal.”
CinemaBlend’s own Snake Eyes review gave the movie a 3 out of 5, with our own Eric Eisenberg giving props to Koji for a performance that had him “steal the movie away” from Golding and suggested that it should have been called Storm Shadow: Cobra Origins to honor the “true star” of the movie. In a landscape where audiences have seen a lot of action moves from Hollywood, Snake Eyes didn’t really set itself apart from the rest. Koji also said this:
Hollywood is just obsessed with telling the same old thing over and again. Firstly, remakes. Secondly, it's got to be based on IP. Third, it's so absurd because I'm just like, hold on. People want originality. Where is it? What is going on here?
Koji also shared that he’s not optimistic about doing a sequel for Snake Eyes despite the Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ending setting up a connection with the G.I. Joe group. The actor is currently working to develop his own Hollywood projects in hopes of “being part of the change I want to see in this morally declining industry,” as he shared.
One does have to wonder if/when there will be another G.I. Joe movie, between Transformers, previous whispers of a followup and the reception of Snake Eyes overall. Koji doesn’t sound too interested in returning to the universe, but perhaps if Storm Shadow got his due with a more original script, he could turn around an experience over which he’s not particularly shouting from the rooftops in excitement.
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