Sam Worthington was considered for the role of Duke, but turned it down due scheduling conflicts with Avatar (2009) (2009).
David Murray was cast as Destro, but dropped it when he had problems with his visa.
Skip Woods wrote an early draft of the film, which featured Alex Mann (aka Britain's Action Man) and Scarlett as his wife. The principal antagonist was the Naja/Ryan, a corrupt CIA agent, who sends a henchman named Cool Dude to kill Scarlett and renders Snake-Eyes mute.
The rapper Common was offered the role of Heavy Duty's cousin Roadblock, but when he turned it down the character was changed to Heavy Duty, who will be played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.
To prepare for her role as the Baroness, Sienna Miller took lessons in boxing and firing live ammunition.
Dennis Quaid filmed all his scenes in the first two months of production.
In 2003, Don Murphy was going to produce this film, but negotiated with the Hasbro Company for Transformers (2007) instead.
Larry Hama, the creator of "G.I. Joe" (1985), was hired as a creative consultant on the film. He will also have a cameo in the film, as a General in the battle between Duke and Hawk, against Destro and Zartan.
Channing Tatum originally didn't want to act in this film because he felt it glorified war. When he read the script, however, he understood the story was more a sci-fi action thriller than a war film. He was also encouraged to sign on by his friend and Stop-Loss (2008)-co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Dennis Quaid describes his character Hawk as "a mixture between Chuck Yeager, Sgt. Rock and a naïve Hugh M. Hefner."
To prepare for his role as the ninja Snake-Eyes, martial arts/stuntman Ray Park practiced wushu training and studied Snake-Eyes's appearances in the G.I. Joe comic/television series.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura admits he feels the Cobra Organization, as depicted in the cartoon, was "probably the stupidest evil organization out there!"
The action scene on Paris street were filmed at Prag, Czech Republic in Dejvice in the area of Universities and Collegues. Filmmakers built shops with flowers, changed names of schools and parked only old french cars (about 70). It took about 14 days.