G.I. Joe: Retaliation wants audiences back in the fight, especially since the film was delayed for nine months.  As part of the film’s viral marketing campaign, Paramount is inviting fans to become part of the bad guys and join up with the Cobra Special Forces.  A fake ad for the fighting force has gone online, and it’s a direct parody of almost every real military recruitment ad (personally, I like the one for the Marines where the guy got a sword to fight a dragon).  But who can resist the call of duty when Keith David is providing the narration?

Hit the jump to check out the recruitment video.  The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Byung-hun Lee, D.J. Cotrona, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, and Bruce Willis  G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens in 3D on March 28th.

Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes are locked in battle atop a snowy cold mountain.  Somehow Storm Shadow has gotten the upper hand and he’s got Snake Eyes pinned to the ground.  Try as he might, Snake Eyes can’t escape.  While they’ve battled many times, they’re always equally matched, and it’s hard for either to get the upper hand.  But not this time.  On this day, it looks like Strom Shadow is finally going to win.  But as he applies even more force with seething anger in his eyes, all of a sudden, Jinx appears from behind and she’s got some sort of breathing device that she puts on his nose and mouth, and a second later, Storm Shadow falls unconscious.  I then hear director Jon M. Chu call cut.

But let me back up a second.

When G.I. Joe: Retaliation was filming in New Orleans, I got to visit the set with a few other online reporters.  While there we got to watch a ton of filming, see some footage, and speak with Chu, Byung-Hun Lee (Storm Shadow), Ray Park (Snake Eyes), Elodie Yung (Jinx), Dwayne Johnson (Roadblock), DJ Cotrona (Flint), and Ray Stevenson (Firefly), and producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura.  Hit the jump for more.

With director Jon M. Chu‘s G.I. Joe: Retaliation opening June 29, Paramount has been amping up the promotional campaign by debuting a ton of character posters and a great looking trailer.  As a fan of the first film, I’ll admit the sequel looks even better and it’s rocking a great cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Adrianne Palicki, Channing Tatum, Walton Goggins, Ray Park, Byung-hun Lee, Elodie Yung, RZA, Ray Stevenson, and D.J. Cotrona.

At this year’s CinemaCon, I got to speak with Adrianne Palicki (Lafy Jaye) and D.J. Cotrona (Flint).  They talked about their reaction to the new trailer and five-minute sizzle reel, the tone of the film, the action, and more.  In addition, with the Red Dawn remake getting released later this year, I asked Palicki is she had seen the finished film.  Hit the jump to watch.

With the 84th Annual Academy Awards nearly one week into our past, I’d be interested in hearing from our readers what the one genuine surprise of the night was for them. For me, it was Meryl Streep’s Best Actress win. Now, don’t get me wrong, Streep is obviously an incredible actress who requires zero justification from a movie blogger. It’s just that, of all the award categories in question, I genuinely expected Viola Davis to win Best Actress. So, if you feel so inclined, sound off in the comments section below about your biggest surprise win/loss of the night. Sarcasm, including “your mom” responses, is encouraged.

In the bag of goodies that is this week’s “Top 5″ you’ll find the new trailer and a ton of new images from The Avengers, a new television spot for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a Prometheus viral video that reassures my suspicions that Guy Pearce could indeed take over the planet if he wanted to, interviews for The Lorax with Danny Devito, Ed Helms, and more, and all of our coverage from the set of Jason Segel and Emily Blunt‘s The Five-Year Engagement. A brief recap and link to each follows after the jump.

A new trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation has gone online. I remain impressed by what we’ve seen thus far and I’m hoping director Jon Chu has crafted a really fun action movie. Bringing Dwayne Johnson into the franchise was a very, very good call as his infectious charm and all around bad ass-ness is put to good use in the Joe universe. This new trailer is short, but it’s got a bit of new footage and another fun adage from Johnson. Counting the first theatrical trailer and the Super Bowl spot, this makes the third trailer we’ve seen from the film in the past month or so. With four months to go until its release, I sure hope they don’t spoil the whole movie in subsequent spots.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer. The film also stars Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, D.J. Cotrona, and Bruce Willis. G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens June 29th.

Walton Goggins is one of my absolute favorite actors, and people, on the planet. After playing the always riveting and often explosive Detective Shane Vendrell on The Shield, he went on to accomplish the impossible by topping that performance with his current one as the enigmatic Boyd Crowder on the FX drama series Justified, opposite Timothy Olyphant. And when he’s not on that show, he’s mixing it up with various roles in feature films, in genres that are all over the map.

While at the TCA Winter Press Tour, Collider got to sit down with the intriguing, fascinating and super-dedicated actor for this exclusive interview about the journey that Boyd Crowder will take in Season 3, how his character has finally accepted that this is his life and his making the most of it, what his relationship with Ava (Joelle Carter) has meant to him, and how great it’s been to develop the unique and unpredictable back-and-forth that Boyd has with Raylan Givens (Olyphant). He also talked about the experience of working with someone as dedicated as Daniel Day Lewis on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, how much fun he had on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and how excited he is about working on Django Unchained with Quentin Tarantino, who he’s been a fan of for 20 years. Check out what he had to say after the jump, and be aware that there might be spoilers:

While some didn’t think much of director Stephen Sommers G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, I had a blast watching the cartoon come to life, because that’s what it was.  Nothing more, nothing less.  And the people that understood that, well, they had a blast watching all their favorite characters on the big screen.

And even though some might think the film wasn’t profitable, the fact is The Rise of Cobra made over $300 million at the worldwide box office and I’m sure it helped to sell a lot of toys.  What I’m trying to say is, this film made people money, and when that happens, you get sequels!

More after the jump…including a MAJOR UPDATE:

Yahoo! Movies has listed the top 10 most streamed trailers from their site in the past year.  They’re all blockbuster movies except for one.  You’ll know which one it is and after you see the trailer, you should know that the movie is available on Netflix “Watch Instantly” and you should add it to your queue.

But since it’s mostly blockbuster movies, there aren’t a lot of surprises.  Of course, sometimes Yahoo! Movies gets an exclusive trailer and sometimes Apple.com gets it.  Since they’re tracking video streaming numbers, their list may not match Apple’s (if Apple ever released a list, which I doubt they will).  Also, keep in mind that this isn’t a list of the year’s best trailer, just the ones that got the most hits.  If you want a countdown of the best trailers, come back later today when I’ll list my top five.

Hit the jump to check out all ten of the year’s most-watched trailers.

With the success of 80′s properties like Transformers and G.I. Joe at the box office, it’s little wonder that movie studios are looking at what else they can grab from that decade so they can mine it for box office gold.  As most of you know, Hollywood is trying to make Robotech, He-Man and Voltron movies, and while those could be very cool, the one 80′s property I’ve always wanted to see is Thundercats.

I don’t know why this cartoon means so much to me (maybe it’s the cool logo), but I’ve always thought the story of humanoid cats fleeing their exploding world was ripe with potential.  Also, Mumm-Ra was awesome.  But even though I’d love to see it, I’ve spoken to a few reliable sources and they tell me the movie is no longer happening at Warner Bros.  I wish I wasn’t reporting that news.

But if you’re a fan of Thundercats toys and video games, then I got some good news for you as well.  Hit the jump for more:

While we usually like to post every news story as a separate article, sometimes it’s a lot easier to group shorter stories together.  Saying that, if you’re a fan of Fringe, The Big Bang Theory, or G.I. Joe cartoons, I’ve got some news to share.

The first bit of news comes from Michael Bell (the voice of Duke on the G.I. Joe cartoon series in the 1980′s) via Toynewsi.  In a recent podcast, Bell said he has auditioned for the voice of General Hawk for a brand new 26 episode run of G.I. Joe.  While it is unclear if the new show will be similar to G.I. Joe: Resolute or more like the 80′s cartoon, with voice casting underway, expect an announcement soon.

For fans of Fringe, EW is reporting  Irish actress Orla Brady (pictured after the jump) has landed the role of Peter’s mom/Walter Bishop’s wife on Fringe.  While she won’t debut till early next year, it will be very interesting to see how she is introduced, as fans of the show know where she must be coming from…

Finally, for fans of The Big Bang Theory, as you can see in the image above (via EW), on next week’s episode, Sheldon (Jim Parsons) lands a cougar.  Unfortunately, she’s Leonard’s mother Beverly (Christine Baranski).  If you saw the previous episode that featured Leonard’s mother, you could sort of see this coming.  But that doesn’t mean the episode won’t be a lot of fun.

In terms of timeline, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: The Video Game takes place immediately after the recently released movie and begins with the Baroness being teleported out of GI Joe custody via Cobra’s newest weapon, the MASS device, a teleportation tool to increase troop movement across the globe, and find that teammates Heavy Duty and Ripcord were also kidnapped during the Baroness’ escape. Starting with Duke and Scarlett, you begin searching for your missing teammates while Breaker, Data Frame, and Dial-Tone try to unravel how the MASS device works back at the PIT (GI Joe’s base of operations) and how GI Joe can remove this military advantage from Cobra’s hands. More after the jump:

Amid rumblings of mid-August inventory-clearing, no fewer than five new titles hit the multiplexes this weekend.  But for most of us there were only two questions that Friday’s box-office results needed to answer: how high could Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9″ climb and how far would Stephen Sommers’ “G.I. Joe” fall?  As for the former, the Peter Jackson-produced sci-fi flick parlayed its great word of mouth into a first place finish with over $14 million from 3,049 locations.  “Joe” was not so lucky.  Last week’s top seed fell a big 68% on Friday to third place behind the maudlin posturing of Eric Bana in “The Time Traveler’s Wife”.   Check back tomorrow for full coverage of the rest of this weekend’s new releases.

While some wondered how much “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” would make opening weekend, the film made over $56 million domestically and $44 million internationally. What that means is…it’s time to start thinking about a sequel!

And according to the LA Times article, Paramount’s Vice Chairman Rob Moore has confirmed that a sequel will soon go into development. What that really means is, if the film continues to perform at the box office, we’ll hear about a script being commissioned and a release date in 2011 or 2012 being picked. So I’d say a few more great weekends and it’s a done deal. With the film costing a reported $175 million to make plus marketing costs, it’s going to have to make at least $300 million before a sequel is greenlit. While some had a lot of problems with “G.I. Joe”, I wasn’t one of them. I’d love to see a sequel made. More as we get it.

As you may have already noticed by the abundance of video interviews on Collider, last night I covered a special “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” screening at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. While there, I landed tons of video interviews with the cast and producers of the movie. Since I already talked to Channing Tatum about “G.I. Joe” on more than one occasion, I decided to use my time to talk about other projects. So after the jump you can hear Channing talk about his next film “Dear John” and the project he’s about to start…a Roman Empire film called “The Eagle of the Ninth”. If you haven’t heard about that one yet, it’s going to be directed by Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland”, “State of Play”). What I’m trying to say is…it’s a film you should be excited for. Watch the interview after the jump:

Last night I covered the special “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” screening at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. While there I was able to interview tons of the cast on the red carpet and the interview you’re about to watch is with the beautiful Rachel Nichols.

During our interview she talked about being in “Star Trek” this summer, the promotional tour for “G.I. Joe”, her next film “Meskada” with Nick Stahl, and she continued Marlon Wayans conversation about Japanese bathrooms. Seriously. Of course we talked about other subjects; those are just some of the highlights. Take a look after the jump: