Director Stephen Sommers Not Fired Over Disastrous G.I. Joe Screenings

According to Movieline, rumors yesterday that director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) has been fired from G.I. Joe are not true. At least, not strictly.

The story, based on an anonymous posting on a producer’s message board, was that the early screenings of G.I. Joe were the worst in Paramount’s history, which prompted the studio to remove Sommers and a producer. (The post, naturally, has since been removed.) But a Movieline source says Sommers remains in place and that the issues have been resolved, though others maintain that Sommers was kept on only as a PR gesture while editor Stuart Baird (Vantage Point) comes up with a satisfactory cut of the movie.

Even if the rumors are overblown, though, a little lingering anxiety about just what we’ll see when G.I. Joe opens on Aug. 7 is probably not unjustified. In the torrent of anonymous sources that drove the story throughout the day, one consensus did emerge: Paramount has abandoned hope that the movie will spawn a franchise.

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