Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is bringing the classic franchise back to the big screen for the first time since 2013, but how does the film’s budget compare to the previous entries in the series? Both G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation made okay money at the box office, but neither film truly became a smashing blockbuster success. That’s partially due to how expensive both movies were to produce – an issue that is, at the very least, less significant for Snake Eyes.
As blockbuster franchises like Fast and Furious and the MCU have become more and more dominant at the box office, their budgets have also grown exponentially. Avengers: Endgame's production budget clocked in at an estimated cost of $356 million, an unthinkable number just a decade before its release, and that doesn't include marketing. With those increased budgets come increased performance expectations, something that can be troublesome for less established series.
While Rise of Cobra and Retaliation aren’t the most expensive movies ever made, they were fairly costly for their day. The first G.I. Joe movie had a production budget of $175 million and eventually earned a worldwide gross of just over $300 million, while Retaliation was produced on a smaller budget of around $135 million, grossing about $375 million globally. By contrast, Snake Eyes was made on an estimated budget of just $88 million – half the cost of The Rise of Cobra and still far less than that of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Even factoring in marketing costs, that's still a far tidier budget than the previous two movies.
With Covid safety still a major concern, especially as the Delta variant of the virus continues to spread as vaccination rates stagnate in the U.S., Snake Eyes is projected to make around $15 million in its opening weekend. That’s likely not enough to topple the box office supremacy of Space Jam: A New Legacy, and it remains to be seen if it can beat out M. Night Shyamalan’s Old. To compare, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra grossed $54 million in its opening weekend, while Retaliation grossed $51 million.
In many ways, the smaller budget for Snake Eyes makes sense. The film is more focused on a single-character story than the ensemble movies that were its predecessors, which allows for a less extravagant production. Snake Eyes is also a bit of a test run for the live-action G.I. Joe franchise, meant to show whether or not a major cinematic return makes sense. With early reviews mixed but skewing positive, Snake Eyes could pave the way for some bigger-budget G.I. Joe blockbusters down the line.
