Here is a piece of interesting news for the beginning of your week: Disney is gearing up to remake the 1984 hit Splash with Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher) and Jillian Bell (TV’s Workaholics) set to star, reports Deadline. The original sleeper success launched the careers of Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks as well as writer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard who later created Imagine Entertainment together. This time around, Grazer and Howard will be financing the new adaptation.
The first Splash followed Hanks as a man who falls in love with the mermaid who saved his life as a little boy, except for most of the movie he does not know who or what she is. In the Disney remake, Tatum will be playing the mermaid to Bell’s grown-up girl. Bell reportedly came up with the idea herself while working on 22 Jump Street with Tatum.
Marja-Lewis Ryan is writing the script. She has recently began writing on a new HBO series (also being produced by Tatum’s Free Association) called Unsupervised. Ryan has also adapted the best selling Sheryl Sandberg book Lean In for TriStar as well as Liked which she both wrote and directed.
After wrapping on Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Tatum will begin shooting Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky. It was recently announced that his rebooted Jump Street franchise will be taking on another reboot, Men in Black, with the aptly titled MIB23. Bell continues to appear on the workplace comedy series Workaholics and will soon be seen in Office Christmas Party and in the Charlie Day-Ice Cube comedy Fist Fight.