Channing Tatum: horrible actor & dream invader

It's bad enough when you watch some movie you don't like--at least that's done by choice and you can turn it off or walk out of the theatre. What happens when you wake up in the middle of the night and realize you have just had a dream about a movie and it was force fed to you against your will? That happened to me a few nights ago and let me tell you, it wasn't a good night's sleep. On the bright side, it may lead to a new film being adapted and turned into box office magic by adroit Hollywood insiders if they happen to stumble upon this post by sheer accident.

Any dream with lunk headed actor and Vanilla Ice worshiper Channing Tatum (see photo of the douche himself) in it can never be good. Ever. Tatum, who has been in such films recently as Fighting and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, seems about as bright as a brain-addled turtle. I've seen him a few times being interviewed and the guy has difficulty accessing the part of the brain to make these things we call sentences. I don't want to go out on a crazy limb here but his career owes more to that rockin' bod and his pouty face.

So, imagine my inner terror when Tatum shows up in a dream where I'm at a movie theatre watching a film. Get ready Hollywood producers and wannabe screenwriters for a doozy of a premise that I want a co-story credit (I'll use an pseudonym due to embarrassment, unlike the current spate of Hollywood types) if you steal this idea from my subconscious. I suggest casting Tatum in the lead too since I can attest to his ability to play this role to perfection--it's right in his range (the character's name is Duke and this will be Tatum's third role as "Duke"; this makes it easier for him to recall his lines) as he'll play a guy who grunts and never lets loose with dialogue with more than two syllables. Call Tatum quick!

The plot of the film early on is about skateboarders in their late 20s who refuse to give up the casual lifestyle they are immersed in. It's their life, their passion, their reason for getting up in the morning and taking to the pavement. The leader of the pack, a surly (yet sensitive!), gifted boarder (Tatum!) thinks it might be time to give up the board but he's torn between loyalty to his crew and the new found maturity he is pondering (pony up the money for Megan Fox!). Imagine the emotional fireworks as we cut to Tatum's face scrunched up in deep thought (he's trying to remember the short phrase he's supposed to utter) and he has a eureka moment and hollers out, "I'll get that G.E.D.!" Later on, Duke (uhm, Tatum, I'm getting confused myself) decides med school is the route to go as that will show all the haters!

Here's where the film takes an odd, but believable twist--at least believable in this day and age of filmmaking. While on a post-dawn skate, Duke/Tatum begins to do battle with these demonic creatures that rise out of the cement and attempt to pull people under the concrete and into the netherworld of hell. This is where the film can load up on the CGI that will coax all the males into seeing this PG-13 rated movie. Duke/Tatum gets to fight off all kinds of demonic spawn, naturally shirtless, with his skateboard in a flame ridden underground city.

Unfortunately (well, fortunate for my well being actually), this is where I woke up but I believe I've laid the groundwork for any filmmaker, producer or Hollywood type to take this idea and run with it. I know, it's not a sequel. It's not based on a graphic novel or a comic book. It's not based on a book or a TV show either. This is something you don't see a lot of now--an original idea via my dream state. I'm not sure I'd score it that high if I had seen it at a test screening but don't brush it off yet. Isn't the awesomely bad Channing Tatum, shirtless skateboarding scenes and lots of violent (but not too violent as we don't want that scary R rating that would cost us that precious teenage market) demon fighting be enough to PR/cross promote the shite out of it into a hit? Didn't you, dear Hollywood, just do that with soulless films like Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe? It can be done again and again and again and again and again and again and again. These idiot audiences of 2009 will never get wiser and they will lap it up every time.