Channing Tatum To Romance Sandra Bullock In 'The Lost City Of D'

Channing Tatum is set to romance a stony Sandra Bullock in Paramount Pictures' The Lost City of D, a romance adventure film with a premise that sounds eerily like Romancing the Stone.Variety reports that Tatum is in final negotiations to star opposite Sandra Bullock in The Lost City of D, a film which Bullock is producing through her company Fortis Films along with Liza Chasin and her 3dot Productions. The movie was originally set to reunite Bullock with her The Proposal co-star Ryan Reynolds, but it appears Reynolds has exited the project, and Tatum is being courted instead.

Based on an idea by Seth Gordon, with an updated script by Dana Fox (Disney's Cruella, How to Be Single), The Lost City of D stars Bullock as a "reclusive romance novelist who was sure nothing could be worse than getting stuck on a book tour with her cover model (Tatum), until a kidnapping attempt sweeps them both into a cutthroat jungle adventure, proving life can be so much stranger — and more romantic — than any of her paperback fictions." Adam and Aaron Nee, who are also attached to the Masters of the Universe reboot, are on board to direct. Gordon is also set to produce through his banner Exhibit A Films.

The comparisons to Romancing the Stone aren't lost on anyone, least of all those behind-the-scenes movers and shakers who described the film as being like the Robert Zemeckis 1984 flick following Kathleen Turner's adventure-romance novelist who ends up in the midst of a real adventure with a swoony Michael Douglas in the Colombian jungle. But the key difference is that Tatum is a "cover model" rather than a grizzled adventurer like Douglas' character, which should lead to all kinds of hilarious hijinks.

Tatum and Bullock are kind of an unlikely pair — both rose to be leading stars in different generations — but both are talented at drama and comedy, with Tatum more recently coming into his own as an unexpected comedic force. This film seems to be taking Tatum back to his rom-com roots, which he hasn't dabbled in for a while (and which, let's be honest, was not his strongest suit). But now that Tatum is a more assured comedian, and he's acting opposite a reliable rom-com presence like Bullock, The Lost City of D could be a lot of fun for more reasons than its name. The only big shame with the name is that it makes one think that it's a Magic Mike sequel, leading to the disappointing realization that...it's not.