Channing Tatum Reveals Why 23 Jump Street Is Off the Table—Even With an Amazing Script
Channing Tatum says 23 Jump Street is on ice despite a great script, revealing why the franchise’s next chapter isn’t happening anytime soon.
Fans keep asking where 23 Jump Street is. Short answer: sitting on a shelf with a killer script and a money problem no one can untangle.
So... is 23 Jump Street happening?
Channing Tatum told Variety he has read a finished script and called it the best thing he and Jonah Hill have ever had written for them. The enthusiasm stops there, because he does not think it is going to shoot anytime soon — if ever — thanks to what he describes as an unwieldy stack of producer costs.
"I get asked more about Jump Street 3 than any other movie I have ever done. I do not think it will ever happen. The problem is the overhead. It would cost as much as the actual budget of the film — if not more — because of all the producers involved. It is just too top-heavy. It falls over every time."
- There is a script, and Tatum says it is the best one for him and Jonah Hill.
- The holdup is not creative — it is money. Specifically, producer fees that, according to Tatum, pile up to the point they rival the movie's budget.
- Tatum says he, Hill, and returning braintrust Phil Lord and Chris Miller have all dropped their fees to make it work.
- One producer has not budged: Tatum name-checked Neal H. Moritz and said his fee is huge — and that is the deal-breaker.
In other words, even with the core team trying to make the math friendlier, the overhead is still so heavy the project keeps collapsing under it.
A little context
Tatum and Hill launched the movie version of 21 Jump Street in 2012, flipping the 1987 TV series into a self-aware buddy-cop comedy. Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed that film and its 2014 sequel, 22 Jump Street. The second movie brought back Ice Cube and added Peter Stormare, Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens, Jillian Bell, Nick Offerman, Keith Lucas, and others. The third film has been teased for years, but if Tatum is right, it is stuck in the most boring kind of limbo: not a lack of ideas, just a balance sheet that will not balance.