Director Jon M. Chu has revealed Channing Tatum's small role in 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' was always part of the plan to "shock" the audience.

Jon M. Chu doesn't regret Channing Tatum's small role in 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation'.

The director - who helms the upcoming action blockbuster starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Adrianne Palicki and D.J. Cotrona - has revealed that the film's producers wanted to "shock" the audience by killing off the actor's on-screen alter-ego early in the movie.

Speaking to BANG Showbiz, he explained: "The plan was from the very beginning, we wanted to shock the audience. We wanted the audience, for the sake of storytelling, to know that the Joes were all vulnerable. Nobody was safe and anybody could die at any moment. I'm sure there will be shockers in the future as well."

Although Tatum is one of the lead actors in the original 2009 movie, 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra', he only briefly reprises his role as Captain Duke Hauser in the sequel and it was rumoured the film was delayed by a year in order to film more scenes with the star following his success in 'Magic Mike', 'The Vow' and '21 Jump Street'.

However, Chu denies that film studio Paramount delayed the action flick's scheduled 2012 release because of Tatum and insists the release was pushed back solely to convert the movie to 3D.

He said: "We didn't reshoot anything. Zero. We didn't reshoot anything with Channing. After the delay, we literally turned it to 3D.

"We spent the last year literally working on every frame of the 3D, bringing the audience into the experience."