Channing Tatum Says He ‘F—ing Hates’ the ‘G.I. Joe’ Movies

The release of Magic Mike XXL is less than two weeks away and Channing Tatum is apparently all out of f–cks to give. The actor stopped by the Howard Stern Show and decided to get brutally honest about a few things, resulting in a few quotes that surely have a few behind-the-scenes people writing frantic emails about the repercussions of one of the most well-liked actors in modern Hollywood speaking his mind. The short version: Tatum really hates those G.I. Joe movies.

The first quote of note is all about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Stephen Sommers’ ultra-goofy action movie that gave Tatum his first leading role. If you’ve ever wondered why his character was so abruptly killed off in the first 20 minutes of the sequel, you now have an answer. He thinks the first movie was a bad movie, always knew it was a bad movie, and only took the job because he was young and felt it could help his career:

I fucking hate that movie ... I was pushed into doing that movie…they give you the contract and they say, ‘Three-picture deal, here you go.’ And as a young — you’re thinking, ‘Oh my god, that sounds amazing. I’m doing that! ... The script wasn’t any good…and I didn’t want to do something that I thought was bad, and I didn’t know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe.

Tatum has been in his fair share of high profile bombs, but at least White House Down and Jupiter Ascending have defenders and feel like they should work on paper. At least they reflect Tatum showing some interesting taste, even in the results weren’t up to box office snuff. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra wasn’t a bomb, but it is a legitimately bad movie and worthy of Tatum’s scorn. Still, this bridge is officially and publicly burnt. The G.I. Joe 3 draft that has his Duke getting miraculously brought back to life just got tossed in the shredder.

When asked about the Ghostbusters movie he’s attached to – you know, the “boy” version that will supposedly coexist alongside Paul Feig’s currently shooting reboot – Tatum didn’t have much to say. Except, you know, the whole thing is a bit of a mess and that there are seemingly too many cooks in the kitchen and no one knows what they’re doing:

That thing’s gotten messy. I gotta be honest, there’s a lot of people doing a lot of things on Ghostbusters. There's a lot of people in the 'Ghostbusters' pool.

Tatum did go on to add that that project is still in development and that he would love to do it, but this certainly coincides with everything we’ve always suspected. Outside of giving Feig the reins to reboot the franchise, nobody has any idea what’s going on with the proposed “Ghostbusters cinematic universe,” especially the guy tapped to star in one of the movies.

Hopefully, this is the first of several brutally honest interviews with Tatum. The eventual Gambit press tour is going to be a scream.

Magic Mike XXL opens on July 1, 2015.