Actor Channing Tatum has been toiling this year mostly in romantic dramas like The Vow and comedies like 21 Jump Street and the upcoming Magic Mike, but he'll return to action for one of his next roles. THR reports that Tatum is in talks for the lead role in Columbia's action-thriller White House Down for Independence Day and 2012 director Roland Emmerich.
The project is being described as "Die Hard in the White House" and the comparison is apt. Tatum will play a Secret Service agent who is a single father and finds himself with few resources to defend the President when the White House is taken over by a paramilitary group. (Who's next to be cast — Alan Rickman?) The studio paid $3 million for the spec script written by James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man), and also faces competition from a similar project, Olympus Has Fallen, which will star Gerard Butler and will be directed by Antoine Fuqua (Brooklyn's Finest). However, Tatum is coming off of back-to-back hits and will test his action mettle with a (possibly brief) appearance in the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which puts White House Down in an excellent position for Columbia.
Already scheduled for a November 1, 2013 release date, production on White House Down is set to start this summer.
Posted 05.16.12 by Ryan