G.I. Joe sequel gets a new title and release date; JJ Abrams closer to directing Star Trek 2

I've been loving the way Jon Chu is assembling such an unexpected cast for his sequel to 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. It might turn out to be a good thing that practically everybody from the last film wasn't brought back.   The only thing I thought needed tweaking was the lame title, GI Joe: Cobra Strikes. Obviously someone at Paramount agreed, because now it'll run with the far superior GI Joe: Retaliation. Very nice, and still gets across the idea of Cobra coming for payback.

The sequel has also been pushed up more than a month, from August 10th all the way to June 29th. You'll recall that was the intended release of JJ Abrams' Star Trek sequel, but with his waffling on whether he'd direct or not that film got pushed back to an undetermined date, likely in 2013. Deadline is indicating  Abrams' appears to be on board, helping hammer out a script with Roberto Orci, Damon Lindelof, and Alex Kurtzman. But officially he hasn't committed to directing anything.  In the end, Abrams will wind up directing it, and then he'll move on to a producer role. I'd bet on it.