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Channing Tatum Really HATED Being In G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

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Channing Tatum can’t stand the movie that made him a star. In a very candid interview on Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show today, the Magic Mike XXL actor shared his true feelings about 2009′s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. 

“Look, I’ll be honest. I f---ing hate that movie. I hate that movie. I was pushed into doing that movie,” Tatum told Stern. (Listen to the clip here.)

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Why the hostility for a film that made $302 million worldwide? Tatum says he didn’t want to make the movie, but had signed a three-picture deal with Paramount after his film debut in 2005’s Coach Carter. When the studio called him with G.I. Joe, he had “no option” but to take the role he was offered — which wasn’t even the one he wanted to play.

‘I’m like, look, I love G.I. Joe. Can I play Snake Eyes? And they’re like ‘No, you’re not playing Snake Eyes, you’re playing Duke,’” he recalled. “ The script wasn’t any good… and I didn’t want to do something that I thought was (1) bad, and (2) I just didn’t know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe.”

Watch the trailer for ‘The Rise of Cobra:’

Tatum acknowledged that he’s “super lucky and blessed” to have done G.I. Joe, since its success put him on the map. But in learning from Stern that the part of Duke was originally intended for Mark Wahlberg, he suddenly had an idea for how to improve the film. “Maybe I should have done my Mark Wahlberg impression for the whole movie,” Tatum suggested. “The movie might have been better. My acting might have been better too.”

The actor looks much more fondly on the films he chose himself, like the hit 2012 comedy 21 Jump Street. “My entire team didn’t want me to do that film,” Tatum admitted. “Everyone was just like, ‘We don’t get it, you’re too old for high school!’ And I’m like, 'That’s sort of the point!’“ Even co-star Jonah Hill, who first called Tatum about the movie, was skeptical. “He called up and actually said, 'This is a terrible idea,’” said Tatum. “And I was like, 'OK, so what’s the movie?’ And he’s like, 'No, no, it’s a really terrible idea, but I think you’d be great in it.’”

One film that Tatum is still non-committal on? His upcoming Ghostbusters movie. In March, Sony announced that they were developing a “male-driven action-centric comedy”  in the Ghostbusters franchise, with Tatum set to star. This came as a surprise to Ghostbusters fans, seeing as the studio already had an all-female remake (starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig) in the works. When Stern asked about his Ghostbusters film, Tatum said it was still a ways off.

“That thing’s gotten messy, I’ll be honest,” Tatum told Stern. “There’s a lot of people doing a lot of things on Ghostbusters… Look, I would love to do it.  I’m saying, there’s a lot of people in the pool right now, in the Ghostbusters pool.”

While the all-female Ghostbusters is currently shooting, Tatum said that his film is “nowhere near” production.