found this:
Lorenzo di Bonaventura was in charge of the film and never contradicted Sommers on anything. Lorenzo, so you know, was previously a senior Warners honcho and had GI Joe under option there (not as a producer) for seven years and he refused to greenlight the film, stating that because he grew up in Italy he had no knowledge of it. "If you google enough, at one point you will see he wanted the film to be about an action hero named Mann (Action Man...got it) and he clearly had no clue what the GI Joe world really was. "And the hapless hack Sommers? Where did he come from? The confused Jon Fogelman at William Morris, who signed Hasbro away from CAA, had to find a director in a hurry for his new clients and gave [Paramount] the only guy who he repped who would do it. A sad end to what could have been a great franchise. Acceleration suits indeed." ...add-on: So I got in touch with my guy and here's what he said: "The bottom line is that you don't read stuff like this about a film that's working. The bad buzz around G.I. Joe has been swirling around for a long time. The studio knows it's a bomb and is trying to mitigate the disaster. "Sommers' complete autonomy got them into this mess, but he doesn't have it anymore. He was petulant and demanding throughout the production and got his way at ever turn, until now. This isn't about his final cut nor anyone's respective 'vision' as they're now mightily endeavoring to get a version of this film together that's releasable and can get the biggest opening possible. "One person at Paramount said it's the weakest major release since Escape From L.A. Any hopes for a new tentpole are completely gone."
