Channing Tatum casually revealed that he has the rights to remake Ghost in a new interview published Tuesday. He plans to make a new take on the romantic classic, with himself potentially playing the Patrick Swayze role. Ghost was one of the highest-grossing movies of the 1990s and won two Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Whoopi Goldberg.
Tatum was making pottery while Vanity Fair interviewed him ahead of the release of Magic Mike’s Last Dance. Naturally, this led to Tatum bringing up Ghost. “Now I know why they put this in Ghost,” the Dog star said. “This whole process is very, very sexual.”
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After Vanity Fair‘s Jessica Pressler commented on how good Ghost is, Tatum said he had the rights to remake the movie. His production company, Free Association, is putting the project together, with himself playing Swayze’s role. “But we’re going to do something different,” Tatum said, adding that it “needs to change a little” before he moved on to another subject.
Ghost (1990) starred Swayze as banker Sam Wheat, who is killed early in the film. His ghost tries to save his girlfriend, Molly Jensen, played by Demi Moore, with the help of Goldberg’s psychic Ona Mae Brown. The Paramount release cost only about $22 million to make but grossed an eye-popping $505 million. Writer Bruce Joel Rubin won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score at the 63rd Academy Awards. Jerry Zucker, who was better known for directing parodies with David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, made his solo directing debut.
Tatum’s next movie is Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which reunites him with director Steven Soderbergh and writer Reid Carolin. He also co-produced the movie, which Warner Bros. will release on Feb. 10. Salma Hayek Pinault also stars. Tatum told Vanity Fair he got into the “best shape of my life” for the movie.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance is the final movie in the franchise. Hayek Pinault plays Maxandra Mendoza, a divorcee who hopes to reimagine a West End show as a male revue for women. “I think we wanted that specifically because I feel some sort of more responsibility that the other movies weren’t about women, they were about men,” Tatum said of the idea. “And we tried to Trojan-horse some real feel-good, I don’t want to say woman empowerment, self-introspection stuff in there.”
