Jillian Bell co-starred in ’22 Jump Street’ with Channing Tatum and plans to re-team with him on a gender-swapped take on the 1984 comedy classic ‘Splash’. In the original, Tom Hanks played a human that fell in love with a mermaid, portrayed by Daryl Hannah, who had legs on land and a tail in water. Obviously, in the new version, Tatum would be the merman, perhaps with Bell taking on the Hanks role. This remake was first suggested in 2015, after the release of ‘Magic Mike XXL’, but there has been very little news since then.
Bell is currently promoting her indie drama ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’, but when asked about ‘Splash’, she offered a bit of an update:
“It’s being written currently, so we hope we get to make it within the next couple years. I think it’s happening. I’m really excited about it.”
Remakes and reboots of ’80s properties haven’t been doing so well lately. Last year, the remake of ‘Overboard’ starring Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris flopped. But that won’t deter Hollywood, where remakes of everything from ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ to ‘Terms of Endearment’ is in the pipeline.
There also seems to be a sudden surge in mermaid-themed projects floating around, like the Freeform series ‘Siren’, which is returning for its second season, the indie thriller ‘The Mermaid’s Song’, and Disney’s big-budget live-action take on ‘The Little Mermaid’.
If ‘Splash’ doesn’t happen, it marks another high-profile project that Tatum just can’t seem to get made, along with ‘Gambit’ for 20th Century Fox. However, even with the Disney buyout of Fox nearing finalization, this mutant flick may not be completely dead, as word has surfaced that Tatum still wants to make it and is even considering stepping up to direct, even after the film has already lost four helmers.
Since ’22 Jump Street’, Bell has appeared in the movies ‘Goosebumps’, ‘Office Christmas Party’, ‘Fist Fight’, and ‘Rough Night’, and the TV shows ‘Workaholics’, ‘Dogs in a Park’, and ‘Idiotsitter’. She is also a busy voice actor, lending her pipes to ‘Gravity Falls’, ‘The Angry Birds Movie’, and ‘Super Mansion’.
Are you interested in seeing a remake of ‘Splash’ with Tatum in the lead?
Source: Indie Wire
