It was recently announced that the G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which had been scheduled to be released on June 29th, has been pushed back to March 29, 2013. The original reason given was that Paramount wanted to convert the movie to 3D in post-production to maximize the film’s potential revenues. Box office competition from the new Avengers, Batman and Spiderman movies was also cited as a reason for the delay.

Deadline.com is now reporting that there is another reason why Paramount bumped the release date to March 2013 (after spending millions of dollars promoting the June 2012 released ate – including a Super Bowl commercial) – the movie tested poorly among ‘test audiences.’

Movies are typically shown to small test audiences so movie studios can get feedback from the public before a film’s official premiere date. Test audiences felt the best part of the movie was The Rock’s on-screen chemistry with actor Channing Tatum, who only appeared at the beginning of the movie in the version that was originally due out 6/29.

There was a great deal of concern that the movie was not ready for prime time, so the studio decided to delay it and now have the conversion to 3D as an excuse.

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