Given Channing Tatum’s penchant for offering unfiltered opinions on the “G.I. Joe” big screen adaptations he himself starred in, one might rightfully pose question how exactly he ended up portraying Joe big boss Duke in the films. And it seems the answer to that question is that he really didn’t want to appear in “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” to begin with.
That nugget also came to light during his Vanity Fair lie detector session, with the actor openly admitting he tried very hard not to join the “G.I. Joe” franchise, stating, “The first one [Rise of Cobra] I passed on seven times.” He’d go on to claim Paramount pretty much strong-armed him into playing Duke in the film, adding, “but they had an option on me and I had to do the movie.”
Tatum later admitted he might’ve been more interested in the “G.I. Joe” franchise had the studio let him play the role he actually wanted, that of masked, katana-wielding ninja Snake Eyes. He made that particular claim during the 2015 Howard Stern interview, telling the host he even asked studio bosses to play that role, only to be told, “‘No, you’re not playing Snake Eyes, you’re playing Duke.'” He’d go on to claim, “The script wasn’t any good,” before adding he was also wary of starring in the first film because he was a big “G.I. Joe” fan when he was a kid. Given Tatum’s career track since his “G.I. Joe” franchise exit, it seems engineering his own on screen death was a savvy move to say the least.
