Movies

'Snake Eyes: G.I. Origins' Screening Had Star Henry Golding "Grinning From Ear To Ear"

Henry Golding Snake Eyes Reaction
By Ethan Anderton/

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins would have brought the Hasbro toy franchise back to the big screen this year for the first time in over six years. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has forced Paramount Pictures to delay the movie from its fall release this year to an unknown date sometime in 2021. But that hasn't stopped the film's star, Crazy Rich Asians actor Henry Golding, from seeing an early cut of the movie, and he says that fans are "in for something insane."

Here's what Henry Golding posted to Twitter a few days ago:

Granted, Henry Golding could have just seen a movie about a snake and walked away feeling really jazzed about it. But we're going to assume that it's about Snake Eyes since he talks about "super people movies" as a comparison. Obviously an actor is going to hype his own movie like this, but there's nothing that says Golding was forced to put a reaction out to social media like this when there isn't an active marketing campaign for the movie just yet. That tells us this is something he's genuinely excited about.

Snake Eyes is a character who has graced the big screen before, in both G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and the sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation. In those movies, the ninja commando was played by stuntman Ray Park, who was famous for playing the Star Wars villain Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. His skills as a swordsman were truly something to behold, so hopefully Henry Golding (or at least his stunt double) is able to live up to that benchmark

As the title indicates, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is meant to reveal how the character came to be the ninja commando fans know today. In the toy franchise's history, Snake Eyes was living in isolation in the High Sierras mountains with a pet wolf named Timber when he was recruited to the G.I. Joe team. Unfortunately, his first mission found him caught in a helicopter explosion, disfiguring his face and leaving his vocal chords damaged beyond repairing, making hum mute.

Considering the original version of Snake Eyes was also a white man with blonde hair and blue eyes, we're betting the origin story might be changed up a bit for the movie. Even the character's origin in G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra was changed drastically, so there's clearly some wiggle room for how to tell the origin of Snake Eyes, especially when you have a handsome devil like Henry Golding playing the character. You don't want him to be stuck inside a helmet for the entire movie.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins also stars Andrew Koji (Warrior) as the titular ninja's nemesis and blood brother Storm Shadow, as well as Iko Uwais (The Raid) as Hard Master, Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Scarlett, Úrsula Corberó (Money Heist) as Baroness, Haruka Abe as Akiko, Takehiro Hira as Kenta, and Steven Allerick (The Expanse) as the father of Snake Eyes.

The movie is directed by Robert Schwentke (RED) from a screenplay written by Evan Spiliotopoulous (Bright 2, The Huntsman: Winter's War). Jeff Waxman, Erik Howsam, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger are serving as executive producers and Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner are producing.

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