According to The Hollywood Reporter, Channing Tatum — perpetuating his role as the poster-child for the reversal of the male gaze — is set to play the central mer-character in a Disney remake of Ron Howard’s original Splash, which famously starred Daryl Hannah as the mermaid who first appears naked on Liberty Island with a full set of legs. (If you remember the conceit of the film, her character, who names herself Madison — after the avenue — has legs out of water and a tale when submerged).
Tatum actually happens to be producing alongside Ron Howard himself (as well as Brian Grazier, Reid Carolin and Peter Kieran), and will star opposite Workaholics’ Jillian Bell, who’ll be taking on the Tom Hanks role from the original. The script was written by Marja-Lewis Ryan, who allegedly also penned a screenplay adaptation of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In.
The original film followed a mermaid who, when she was a mer-child, saved a non-mer-child-who’d-grow-up-to-be-Tom-Hanks from drowning. Because she was half fish, however, she and the Tom-Hanks-to-be could never be. That is, until she decides, in adulthood, as so many of us mistakenly seem to, to relocate to New York. Here, she learns the English language through a series of commercials on TV screens at Bloomingdales, reveals that she doesn’t eat lobster like a human, courts Tom Hanks (playing Allen Bauer, a fruit and vegetable entrepreneur), and is pursued by a prying scientist played by Eugene Levy.