Channing Tatum Fears Streaming: There’s ‘Less Good Storytelling and a Lot More Product Out There’

Zack Sharf

Channing Tatum told Forbes in a recent interview that streaming has made him a little fearful due to the changes in storytelling it has brought onto the industry. The actor has remained committed to the theatrical experience through the pandemic, releasing his feature directorial debut “Dog” in February 2022 to a strong $61 million at the domestic box office. While “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” was originally conceived as an HBO Max premiere, Warner Bros. changed coursed and and opened it exclusively in theaters in February.

“The movie industry is just changing so much,” Tatum said. “It’s a different era now and it’s just getting crazier with the streamers. I do fear a little for the storytelling of it all. I think there will be less good storytelling and a lot more product out there.”

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Tatum pointed out that the streaming boom has resulted in such a crazy increase in “product” that even theatrical releases are impacted. He cited his own 2015 sequel “Magic Mike XXL,” which he says was forced to have a marketing budget that greatly outweighed the production budget because it takes that much more effort to break through the clutter of so much content that’s available for viewers these days.

“We made ‘Magic Mike 2‘ for $12 million dollars and they spent $60-$70 million dollars to sell it,” Tatum said. “So, we’re spending exponentially more money to sell a movie than actually make the thing for you. That should be the other way around. We could be spending the money on the thing that the viewer is actually going to get to see and now it’s just who can create the most noise to break through the cataclysmic wave of content coming out every single day.”

Tatum’s upcoming credits include a starring role in Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut “Pussy Island” and spearheading a reboot of the Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore classic “Ghost.” Regarding the latter, Tatum told Forbes it’s “really getting somewhere we can really be proud of and really want to go make.

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