It's been nearly a week now since Paramount yanked G.I. Joe Retaliation from its schedules, just over a month before it was due in cinemas. That was in spite of having the merchandising in place, the advertising campaign in full swing, and the promotional work underway.

The officially-given reason for the delay was to add on 3D, which would enable Paramount to recoup more cash from non-US markets, where 3D continues to boom. As such, the film has been bumped back to March 2013.

However, as we speculated here, the 3D sounded like a cover story. That Paramount blinked when it stared into the heart of one of the most competitive seasons of summer blockbusters in years. It basically feared its film was going to get swamped, in much the same way Battleship had been when it took on The Avengers at the US box office a week or two back.

Inevitably, a week down the line, one or two further details have emerged, and we weren't a million miles off the mark.

According to a new report over at Deadline, there are some problems with the film, that will be fixed in the months ahead. Reshoots are planned, after test scores on the movie reportedly weren't encouraging. Furthermore, there was a genuine fear, it seems, that the movie was going to get blasted away at the box office, especially with The Amazing Spider-Man arriving one week later.

But there was a factor that we hadn't considered, that might just turn out to be one of the main reasons behind the delay: Channing Tatum.

Tatum appeared in the first G.I. Joe movie, but the plan was to kill him off early in the second one. However, this year, he's appeared in two big hits to date - The Vow and 21 Jump Street - and his upcoming stripper comedy, Magic Mike, is expected to make it three in a row. Paramount, therefore, is not keen to throw Tatum away.

Thus, moving G.I. Joe's release date first of all stops a direct competition with Magic Mike. And secondly, presumably it means that Tatum's character is now set to survive, and be as beefed up as reshoots will allow.

One interesting point in the Deadline article is a brief line about director Jon M Chu. The site reports that Chu is "shellshocked" about the late-in-the-day delay.

We'll keep you posted on G.I. Joe: Retaliation as we hear more.