Remember when studios LEARNED from their mistakes?
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It was G. I. Joe's fault in the first place.
They literally did the exact same thing with the second live action movie and killed off Duke [again]. Nothing was learned.
Because their only thought was how to sell more new toys.
I don’t get why that’s the first thought, though. Have a spin-off where Duke goes and trains GI JOE SPECIAL RECRUIT UNIT or whatever. Then you can even make crossover toys where the original characters get special “instructor” or “veteran” or “mentor” figures, or whatever you want to call them.
I saw the special commentaries on the 2006 Transformers movie DVD.
Hasbro didn't see it as a "mostly-serious with characters you can root for and want to be like" show.
It was a toy show.
It was meant to advertise toys.
That's all Hasbro saw it as then.
The reaction to this movie was exactly what made Hasbro change their views on this.
Yeah, but the problem is: that's still dumb. Imagine you're Hasbro. You must have some knowledge that your toy-commercial-as-TV-show is popular. You have the sales figures on the toys. You have the TV ratings. You've probably done some kind of market research. At the very least, you know enough to think it's worth making into a movie in the first place. Even if you think, quite understandably, "we should use this movie to introduce a bunch of new toys," or, a little less understandably (but I'll forgive it), "the kids don't actually care much about the characters specifically, it's enough that they fire guns and they're on screen so we can theoretically slop out new ones whenever," you still have to forget that parents and children might have a couple objections to seeing the hero of a kids' movie get stabbed and die on screen.
But even if you are misinformed about your products' popularity, and even if you do totally forget that killing the hero might not go down well, you still have to make the wrong choice here too: what will actually give you more opportunity to sell new toys? Killing Duke off and saying he's gone for good, or having him written off in a less permanent way? You can get you new line out either way, but option B lets you keep Duke in your back pocket for if the new guys aren't as popular or to make special edition guest cameo figurines or whatever.
It requires bad decision making on every level.
I was angry about the first G.I Movie doing it back in the 80s because -- despite my love for Don Johnson -- the character in that movie to replace Duke was an absolute douche bag; and even if he were supposed to be a secondary character, he was still an unlikable Douche Bag, basically Hotrod ramped up to 11.
I didn't mind them killing off Duke in the live-action sequel of G.I Joe because they gravely miscast him for the bisexual faggot Channing Tatum. They did manage to make him slightly more likable in the sequel with the little screen time he had with The Rock, but he was just so vastly miscast. He came across as more as a secondary character rather than as a leader. I probably would have been far angrier had they cast someone likable as Duke the first time.