Channing Tatum Speaks out About '23 Jump Street'

Tatum is staying optimistic about this sequel, which has been on hold for a decade now.

By Michael Hein

It's been ten years since 22 Jump Street premiered, but a sequel is still on the table – and Channing Tatum is still on board. In a new interview with our sister site ComicBook.com, Tatum said that he has even seen a script for a potential 23 Jump Street. He said: "It's still the best script that I've ever read for a third movie."

Tatum and Jonah Hill co-starred in a reboot of 21 Jump Street back in 2012, and it was successful enough to earn a sequel in 2014. The action-comedy was actually supposed to be a trilogy, with Sony Pictures reportedly developing a third installment all the way back in 2014. In fact, the plan was reportedly to create a crossover with the Men in Black franchise, with the third installment called MIB 23. That movie got a potential director, but it never got out of the development stage.

That was the project ComicBook asked Tatum about during his press junket for Fly Me to the Moon, which premieres next month. Once the subject came up, Tatum's co-star Scarlett Johansson even took an interest, asking him what happened with that project. He said: "It's just a lot of bureaucracy, kind of above the line stuff. It's really hard to get it made and we've been trying to get it done."

"You know what, I'm going to put some good juju out there and I'm going to say I would love to see 23 Jump Street," Tatum declared. "I would love to do it with Jonah, and Jonah I know wants to do it. We would love to just get to go play again."

Even a decade ago, 21 Jump Street and its sequel leaned heavily on jokes about its stars being too old for the age group they were playing, but that wouldn't stop this movie from being made. The series stars Tatum and Hill as Greg Jenko and Morton Schmidt, two rookie police officers assigned to a secret undercover project where they pose as students to track down drug dealers in schools. In the first installment, they pass for high schoolers while in the second they go to college. The third movie would have reportedly taken them to medical school.

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In fact, fans only learned about the existence of a third movie from a historic data breach. Back in 2014, Sony was hit by a company-wide breach that exposed some of the company's biggest plans at the time. That included some projects have come out since, including plans to incorporate the Spider-Man character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and early plans for an animated film about Miles Morales. Behind those, the plan for a 21 Jump Street crossover with Men in Black was widely considered the third-most exciting idea, but now it's the only one that hasn't been made.

While Tatum remains hopeful, his colleagues have their doubts. Just last year, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller told Rolling Stone that they doubted the project would ever get revived. In 2022, Tatum told Collider that the real issue was the expense of paying all the high-value producers tied to both franchises. Right now, there are no known plans to get 23 Jump Street up and running, but you can catch Tatum in Fly Me To The Moon starting on July 12, only in theaters.

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