JAXN/AKM-GSIOne much-loved actor has joined The Hateful Eight.
Channing Tatum is one of several popular stars cast in Quentin Tarantino's new movie by that name, a post-Civil War Western. This will mark one of the most high-profile roles for the actor and heartthrob, known for his fit physique and roles in the Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street films, and the first time he will work with the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, who is known for violent and immensely popular films with strong ensemble casts, such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the two-part Kill Bill.
Details about The Hateful Eight were announced by production firm The Weinstein Company on Thursday. Tatum joins previous Tarantino movie stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Justified and Sons of Anarchy actor Walton Goggins and fellow newcomers Jennifer Jason Leigh (known for roles in Revenge, Weeds and '80s cult teen film Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and Demián Bichir.
The Hateful Eight is set "six or eight or 12 years after the Civil War," The Weinstein Company said in a statement to E! News. Details about Tatum's role were not revealed. The movie is set for release in 2015.
According to the studio, Russell plays a bounty hunter, John Ruth, who is escorting a fugitive, Daisy Domergue, played by Leigh, through the "wintry Wyoming landscape" to Red Rock to bring her to justice. Along their treacherous journey via stagecoach, they meet several eclectic characters.
Jackson plays a former union soldier who is now an "infamous bounty hunter" and Goggins portrays a "a Southern renegade who claims to be the town's new sheriff." At a sewing shop, Ruth and Domergue meet a temporary supervisor (Bichir), a cowboy (Madsen), a Confederate general (Dern) and (gulp) Red Rock's hangman (Roth).
Tarantino directs and wrote the screenplay for The Hateful Eight, which marks his first movie since Django Unchained, which won him an Oscar in 2013 for his original screenplay and starred Jackson and Goggins. Tatum danced onstage at the ceremony that year.
In January, pages from the script appeared on Gawker, spurring a lawsuit from Tarantino, who said the leak left him "very depressed" and added that he was shelving the project indefinitely. The suit was dismissed, refiled and ultimately withdrawn.
Tatum has worked on the same projects with two of the Hateful Eight stars before. He and Jackson appeared in the 2005 movie Coach Carter. Goggins played a prison warden in the 2013 G.I. Joe sequel G.I. Joe; Retaliation, which saw Tatum reprise his role as Duke.
Tatum recently filmed Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to the hit 2011 male stripper drama.
The Hateful Eight casting news comes a week before the release of his latest movie, Foxcatcher, which co-stars Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and The Breakfast Club's Anthony Michael Hall and hit theaters on Nov. 14.
Tatum also stars with Oscar winner George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson in Oscar-winning duo Joel and Ethan Coen's latest film, Hail Caesar, a '50s-era comedy "about the movie business, life, religion and faith," according to his Instagram page. The movie is set for release on Feb. 5, 2016.