You may not have heard of him or know much about him but make no mistake, Channing Tatum will be a star. With several big projects already filmed or filming, Tatum’s name will be all over multiplexes before long. Now Variety is reporting that he’s just signed on to star in a heist film that involves the sport of parkour.
New Line is planning production early next year on the film involving parkour. Parkour, for those of us who don’t know, is a free-jumping extreme sport in which agile practitioners run and jump from rooftops. The sport was featured prominently at the beginning of Casino Royale.
Kevin Lund and T.J. Scott wrote the drama which revolves around a pair of jumpers who use their skills in heists. The IMDB actually gives us a more specific plotline:
A New York cop goes undercover in the world of Parkour, AKA free running, in order to track down a gang of sly bank robbers.
The IMDB also lists the title as simply Parkour (rolls of the tongue doesn’t it?).
As I mentioned, Channing Tatum has already agreed to star. Tatum has been a rising star for a couple of years now. Most of us probably first noticed him in Coach Carter, but I personally thought he was a stand-out in She’s The Man (laugh if you want, but I thought it was a solid movie). Of course, everyone else probably knows him from Step Up and Step Up 2: The Streets or the recent Stop Loss.
If you don’t know Channing Tatum from any of the movies I just mentioned you’ll get plenty of chances. His IMDB page lists no less than 7 projects he’s already filmed or is attached to. Among those projects is Michael Mann’s Public Enemies in which he’ll star alongside Christian Bale and Johnny Depp and will play Pretty Boy Floyd, and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra in which he’ll be playing Duke. Believe it or not, Channing Tatum is actually one of the top searched terms here at Pop Critics which just goes to show how much of a star on the rise he really is.
At any rate, the parkour film might be just one of Tatum’s many projects, but I think it has a lot of potential…or it could really blow. Richie Smyth will be making his feature film directing debut. He’s previously directed music videos including four videos off U2’s most recent album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and is himself an avid extreme sports practitioner.
What do you think? Does it sound interesting? Are you a Channing Tatum fan yet?
About the activity called Parkour:
It is not freerunning. That is another activity entirely.
It is not running/jumping from rooftops.
Anyone interested in the activity called Parkour, learn about it on wikipedia
or watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvP_HfVa2Rs&fmt=6
I found out about Parkour with the 2004 movie District 13 (Banlieue 13). It's a french film and it stars the founder of Parkour, David Belle. It's a great movie. There going to be doing a sequel for 2009.
At first, I thought you meant he was going to be staring in a series about Parkour. That would be pretty cool. A movie is good to though… lol.
As for Parkour and Free Running, their actually pretty similar… so it's not entirely a different activity.
I was going by what Variety reported. I know nothing of the activity personally. I think perhaps Variety was referring to how it would be portrayed in the movie…? But that's just a guess.
Thanks for the link, it's pretty awesome stuff…that video is fantastic.
I second the movie. We caught it in Thailand and were blown away. We didn't know anything about it, and the first 10 minutes or so is a long parkour / fighting sequence that just floored us. Good action and dialog.