I recently came across a report on the Deadline website that gave the news that Channing Tatum was being considered for the Wachowski project ‘Jupiter Ascending’ which would be an original film from the duo and is expected to be on the same level of creativity of ‘The Matrix’. 
I saw that news and starting scratching my head about why they would want Channing Tatum in the role. He’s awful! I have to admit that I enjoyed him in 21 Jump Street and thought he was fairly entertaining outside some of the roles we’d seen him in prior. What I don’t understand is how/why someone would think that he would be appropriate for a large budget move. The dude was already in few big movies. He was in ‘The Eagle’ and well… Let’s just say that “The Eagle landed.. awkwardly” as the film only raked in $36 million on a $25 million budget. He was “Duke” in G.I. Joe and from what I’ve seen of the sequel it appears that the powers that be have chosen to kill off his character in the opening segments and have instead chosen Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Bruce “The Man” Willis to be the major draws for that franchise. To put it frank: I think he needs to stick to smaller budget films. Granted the Wachowski’s were able to make Keanu Reeves look decent in the first Matrix film but by the time ‘Reloaded’ hit the polish on that turd started to wear thin without the back story of an introverted computer hacker.
Dude...
There’s nothing wrong with smaller budget films. Nothing at all. 21 Jump Street had a budget of $42 million and has managed to snag over $82 million in a reasonable period of time. That’s good! That works for him! He has a film coming out with Steven Soderbergh called ‘Magic Mike’ that for all intents and purposes will have a comparably smaller budget that I foresee will be pretty successful for the guy. Matthew McConaughey is another actor who had this trouble. Save for a couple of exceptions the guy also had trouble with the larger budget films but found a chance to shine with films that focused with a smaller budget. The Lincoln Lawyer was a resounding success for what it was. Orlando Bloom outright retired from films for a while after the ‘Pirates’. As such I think Tatum falls into this crowd of someone who needs to find a ‘lane’ and stay there. Go with what works. I don’t think blockbuster films are working for him at the moment and he should continue to take this time to hone his craft, continue to generate a fan base, and stay in that lane for the time being.
Source: Deadline
Thoughts? Rebuttals? Leave ‘em in the comments!
