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Channing Tatum Ready to Protect the President in 'White House Down'

by Ben Pearson
May 14, 2012
Source: THR

I'll confess to being a bandwagon fan of Channing Tatum. He held his own along with a terrific A-list cast in Steven Soderbergh's spy flick Haywire, but I think we all saw a glimpse at his full potential in Sony's hilarious 21 Jump Street from earlier this year. Now, Tatum is looking to get back into action hero mode, as THR reports the actor is in talks to star in Roland Emmerich's presidential actioner White House Down. He'll play a skilled Secret Service agent and single dad in the vein of John McClane who is thrust into action to save the President during a rogue paramilitary takeover in our nation's capitol. More below!

Tatum has handled action roles before in the G.I. Joe series, but I'm really hoping that Emmerich's bombastic style brings out the best in him as an on-screen action hero. His performances have oftentimes been bland and boring, but as Jump Street showed, give him a chance to show a little personality and audiences will respond. Not much more is known about White House Down yet, aside from the fact that it's one of two competing projects with a similar theme, the other being Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen with Gerard Butler attached as the lead. This one seems to be moving quickly, though, as Sony snatched up James Vanderbilt's script for $3 million (big money) and shooting is set to start this summer. Cool?

Filed under Casting, Development, Movie News

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