I don’t know how I always get the joy of reporting the Channing Tatum news around here. Just my lucky lot in life I guess. For those who haven’t seen the latest news, Tatum is reuniting with Dito Montiel, who worked with the actor in A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints. Now they’re putting on a movie about underground streetfighting – one of two or three similarly plotted projects.
Of course, Tatum may be many things – a model, attractive, and even a bit of a dancer, but he’s not a fighter. Neither is Tatum’s co-star, Terrence Howard, who will play Tatum’s character’s manager. So now the cast has been buffed up with a couple people who look like they’ve been through a fight or two, and one actual professional fighter, according to Joblo.
Professional fighter Cung Le joins the cast to bring some credibility to the movie. After all, it doesn’t make sense to have a movie about fighting without at least one person who knows how to fight. To show what a life of fighting can look like, Luis Guzman has been added to the cast. That’s a low blow at Guzman I guess, but you have to admit, he looks a hell of a lot more realistic as someone who has been around street fighting than Tatum’s pretty mug.
Zulay Henao’s name has also been attached. I don’t know her (her biggest role on a short list is this year’s Illegal Tender) but I’m betting she plays a rough-and-tumble underworld fighting queen who accidently falls for Tatum, leading him into the final ‘bout where he avoids someone sweeping his leg and manages to win the day, carrying her off so they can live happily ever after. That’s just a guess though.
Making sure nobody gets too confused (these are Tatum fans after all), the movie is titled Fighting and is currently in production with an anticipated 2008 release date.
