Here’s hoping Ion avoids that same pitfall. News came out today that Channing Tatum is attached to star in the new sci-fi romantic epic that’s apparently given Hollywood Avatar fever, to the point where The Hollywood Reporter story about the casting news speculatively called Ion the “next Avatar?” in its headline. Ridley and Tony Scott are both attached to produce the film, which “revolves around a man who travels to different Earths and dimensions in order to find his reincarnated lover.” Screenwriter Will Dunn reportedly tried last year to sell Ion to studios to no avail, but now that Avatar has grossed the GDP of a medium-sized island nation, suddenly those same studios — including Avatar‘s own Fox, which is in the lead to pick up Ion — have decided sweeping sci-fi romantic epics are good business after all.

That is, of course, until the next sweeping sci-fi romantic epic doesn’t quite meet expectations at the box office. Which isn’t to say Ion would be that film, but just that perhaps the reason audiences worldwide were so captivated by Avatar wasn’t that it was a sweeping sci-fi romantic epic per se, but a visually stunning and emotionally involving cinematic experience that they’d never had before. Maybe finding the next that, whether it’s sci-fi or period western, should be the priority. Am I crazy, Popwatchers? Tell me I’m crazy — it wouldn’t be the first time.

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Based on the real-life saga of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, as told in the same-titled book, the plot takes off after the couple is hit from behind by a fast-moving truck and Krickett is left in a coma. Upon waking she has no memory of her new husband, so the pair must rebuild their relationship from scratch.

Channing is currently shooting the Ron Howard film Cheaters with Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Connelly and Winona Ryder in Chicago. McAdams is set to begin filming the Woody Allen flick Midnight in Paris with Adrien Brody next month.

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He is Hollywood’s leading man in uniform. So how does the Dear John star, 30, maintain that ripped army-issue physique? “Do I get massages? Hell yeah, I get massages!” he says. “Are you kidding me? I wanna get one right now! Where’s a masseuse?” Source

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And though the music wasn’t exactly beautiful, new American Idol judge Ellen DeGeneres did seem rhapsodic at having her talk-show guest Channing Tatum demonstrate some of the moves he made in his former job as a male “dancer.”

“What kind of dancer were you, Channing?” DeGeneres asked Tatum, 29, for an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show airing Wednesday.

“I was a stripper,” replied the Dear John star, prompting loud applause from the in-studio audience. “Look,” he said, “I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed of it.”

Explaining that he appeared at a venue named Male Revue, Channing was asked if he did lap dances. “I don’t know what men strippers do,” DeGeneres admitted.

And so, Tatum demonstrated what men strippers do – though, if the photo provided by the show’s publicity department is any indication, not a thread was removed. Still, said Tatum, “Now I’m embarrassed.”

And while she was short of cash, DeGeneres, as usual, was not short on comment.

“I wish I had a dollar,” she said after his up-close-and personal routine with her. “If only I had cash I would’ve kept you going.”

Having the final word, Tatum said, “Don’t worry. That one was on the house.”

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Released by Sony’s Screen Gems banner, “Dear John” debuted as the No. 1 movie with $32.4 million, knocking off “Avatar” after seven weekends in first place, according to studio estimates Sunday.

“It is very cool to know that it was our movie that audiences just totally embraced and made No. 1 for the weekend,” said Rory Bruer, head of distribution at Sony. As for runaway blockbuster “Avatar,” he quipped, “I think they’re going to be fine in the long run.”

“Avatar” slipped to No. 2 with $23.6 million, raising its domestic total to $630.1 million. Directed by James Cameron, 20th Century Fox’s “Avatar” surpassed his own “Titanic,” which had held the domestic revenue record at $600.8 million.

With a record $2.2 billion worldwide, “Avatar” also has soared past the $1.8 billion “Titanic” took in globally.

Factoring in today’s higher admission prices, however, “Avatar” has sold fewer tickets than “Titanic.”

“Avatar” had been No. 1 domestically longer than any movie since 1997’s “Titanic,” which held on at first place for 15 weekends. The studio was unconcerned that “Avatar” finally fell out of the top spot.

“It had to happen sometime,” said 20th Century Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. “There’s nothing that could disappoint me with this movie.”

By the eighth weekend, most Hollywood movies have long since dropped out of the top 10 rankings.

“Avatar” still is going strong after eight weeks, with the added luster of a monthlong buildup to the Academy Awards on March 7. Following the example of Oscar champ “Titanic,” “Avatar” tied for the lead at the Academy Awards with nine nominations and is a front-runner to win best picture.

Fox executives would not speculate what number “Avatar” eventually might hit at the box office.

“Who knows what that is? It just keeps on going,” Livingston said.

The weekend’s other new wide release, Lionsgate’s spy story “From Paris With Love,” opened at No. 3 with $8.1 million. The movie stars John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as CIA men trying to crack a terrorist plot.

Fox Searchlight’s acclaimed country-music tale “Crazy Heart” expanded from narrow release and broke into the top 10, coming in at No. 8 with $3.7 million. Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal have acting Oscar nominations for the film, which follows a boozy country star trying to turn his life around.

While “Avatar” features a human-alien romance light-years away, “Dear John” centers on a long-distance love story between a soldier (Channing Tatum) and his sweetheart (Amanda Seyfried) back home.

“Dear John” had a record opening for Super Bowl weekend, topping the $31.1 million debut for “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” in 2008.

The movie was based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, whose Hollywood adaptations such as “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember” have been steady draws for women. Female crowds made up 84 percent of the audience for “Dear John,” according to Sony.

Sparks “creates these stories that really pull at your heartstrings, and certainly that may be first and foremost for women rather than men, though I think a few of us have hearts, too,” Bruer said. “But his stories really resonate and are very compelling for women.”

That bodes well for the movie over Valentine’s Day weekend, said Geoffrey Ammer, head of marketing for Relativity Media, which produced “Dear John.” Valentine’s weekend draws big date crowds, with women often picking which film to see.

Business on Sunday was predictably slow as football fans watched the Super Bowl instead of going to the movies. But “Dear John” already exceeded industry expectations with $26.2 million on Friday and Saturday.

“Super Bowl weekend isn’t about men. It’s about women,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “This counter-programming strategy just absolutely works, the female audience propelling a movie to unprecedented heights.”

Hollywood could use more fresh hits like “Dear John” if it hopes to match 2009’s record box office pace. The first couple of weeks this year, “Avatar” had revenue and attendance running well ahead of last year.

But revenues have now declined for four straight weekends. So far in 2010, domestic revenues are at $1.2 billion, 1.5 percent ahead of last year’s, according to Hollywood.com.

Factoring in higher ticket prices this year, though, movie attendance is down 0.5 percent.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. “Dear John,” $32.4 million.

2. “Avatar,” $23.6 million.

3. “From Paris With Love,” $8.1 million.

4. “Edge of Darkness,” $7 million.

5. “The Tooth Fairy,” $6.5 million.

6. “When in Rome,” $5.5 million.

7. “The Book of Eli,” $4.8 million.

8. “Crazy Heart,” $3.7 million.

9. “Legion,” $3.4 million.

10. “Sherlock Holmes,” $2.6 million.

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In the new issue Details, the “Dear John” star reveals that while he’s “always been good at picking up certain things, like sports and dancing,” he struggled with school. “I could never read very fast or very well,” he shares. “I was tested for learning disabilities, for dyslexia.”

Eventually, in the eighth grade, Channing was put on Ritalin and Dexedrine to treat his attention-deficit disorder. While the drugs helped him to focus and turn his grades around, it had a negative side effect: depression.

“The longer I took Dexedrine, the worse I felt,” he says. “It sucked all the personality from me. I’d get depressed. I would think suicidal — I was never personally suicidal, but I could see how some kids were, how they’d be, like, I can’t take this anymore.”

During his senior year of high school, Channing decided he didn’t want to be medicated anymore. He graduated, then went on to attend a small college in West Virginia on a football scholarship. After a year, he returned to Tampa, Florida, where he took on a series of odd jobs including everything from being a mortgage broker to a telemarketer to a … stripper!?

Yes, in case you didn’t know, Tatum had moves long before he starred in “Step Up.” In 1999, the actor performed as part of a dance revue called Male Encounter using the stage name Chan Crawford.

Although his handlers did their best to keep Tatum’s secret stripper past under wraps, the actor says he never tried to hide it.

“I’ve been wanting to talk about this forever!” he exclaims. “I’m happy I did it. I’m not proud, because it’s not something to be proud of, but I had an experience that only one out of a thousand — a million — people can say they’ve ever had. I’ve been through this crazy sort of life, and I came out the other side fairly unscathed.”

See more ‘teaser’ photos from his magazine shoot -  HERE!

source:  OMG!

While filming the Roman battle flick The Eagle of the Ninth in Scotland, Tatum was rushed to hospital with – believe it or not – a scorched penis, after a technique to keep warm went horribly awry.

“It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life,” the actor, 29, tells Details in its February issue. “I’ve been to the hospital, gotten stitches, had broken fingers and toes. But this was a suffocating kind of pain.”

The accident occurred after Tatum had finished shooting a river scene in the icy waters of the Scottish Highlands. A crew member was supposed to pour warm water into his wetsuit to take away the chill, but inadvertently poured in scalding water instead.

The results weren’t pretty. On the way to the hospital, Tatum told the driver, “You might have to knock me out, because I don’t know if I can take the pain. Just grab something and hit me on the back of my head.” Morphine did the trick instead, along with salves and bandages. Eventually, time healed all.

“I’m good … now,” Tatum says. “One hundred percent recovered.”

Life as a Stripper
Elsewhere in the interview, Tatum, who last July married actress Jenna Dewan, describes the time before he was famous, when he did a stint working as a stripper.

“I’ve been wanting to talk about this forever!” Tatum says, apparently sincerely. “I never wanted to hide it. I think it’s hil-larious.”

“I’m happy I did it,” he adds. “I’m not proud, because it’s not something to be proud of, but I had an experience that only one out of a thousand – a million – people can say they’ve ever had. I’ve been through this crazy sort of life, and I came out the other side fairly unscathed.”

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