Recently Disney has been in cahoots with Brian Grazer and Imagine Entertainment (Ron Howard’s production company) to remake the 1984 film Splash. The company has already attached stars Channing Tatum and Jillian Bell as the lead roles for the upcoming film. Splash has been reimagined from the original script of man meets mermaid rom-com storyline. In Maria Lewis-Ryan’s new 2016 script, she plans for Channing Tatum to play the mermaid character who falls in love with his human counterpart, Jillian Bell.
The original film starred Tom Hanks as a young boy named Allen Bauer, who is saved from drowning by an attractive female mermaid named Madison who is played by Daryl Hannah. Twenty years later, Allen and Madison are reunited, but unknowing Allen has no idea who or what Madison is, which raises suspicions. Eventually, the couple has to save themselves from potential danger near the end of the film and decide to live in the sea. The original 1984 film had a small budget of 8 million dollars and hit box office gold with 64 million dollars gross revenue all across the world.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were the original director and producers of the 1984 film. It was one of their first hit films that help both Howard and Grazer’s film careers flourish. They plan to work with Channing Tatum’s production company Free Association to gain the actor as another producer for the film. Along with Tatum, Anna Culp will be set as another executive producer. Other producers, Reid Carolin and Peter Kieran, are expected to also join the production team.
Channing Tatum and Jillian Bell have previously worked together in the 22 Jump Street comedy film. Tatum recently finished filming for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the sequel film to the 2014 Kingsman: The Secret Service. Tatum is still working on his role in the upcoming film Logan Lucky, a Steven Soderbergh film about a heist in a NASCAR race.
