Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Channing Tatum is set to star in The Contortionist’s Handbook, the film adaptation of the Craig Clevenger novel that will be financed by GreeneStreet Films and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment as a co-production  between those companies and DAS Films. Production will begin early next year.

Tatum will play a forger who moves smoothly from one identity to the next because of a strict code of conduct that keeps him from getting caught or having to deal with his own troubled past. That gets upended when he falls for a beautiful woman with her own dark secret. Robin Shushan wrote the script. The novel was published in 2002.

The film will be produced by Das Films’ Sriram Das, GreeneStreet’s John Penotti, Tim Williams and Sidney Kimmel. Tatum is aboard the project as co-producer, along with Reid Carolin, his partner in the shingle 33andout.

Stretching into a producing role with The Contortionist’s Handbook seems a logical progression for Tatum, the G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra star who broadened into the romance genre with the hit Dear John. Tatum has been filming The Dilemma, the Ron Howard-directed comedy for Universal Pictures that stars Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, and next begins shooting The Vow opposite Rachel McAdams. Tatum just wrapped the Steven Soderbergh-directed Haywire. He’ll next star in the Kevin Macdonald-directed Focus Features drama The Eagle, playing a Roman soldier who ventures into the untamed Highlands of Scotland to discover the truth behind his father, who disappeared along with the Roman legion he commanded. Tatum’s repped by UTA and Management 360.

FilmNation’s Glen Basner will sell international rights through its partnership with GreeneStreet.

“Craig Clevenger’s crafting of the highly complex character of John Vincent Dolan entertained and shattered us when we read it,” said GreeneStreet’s Penotti. “Robin’s adaptation crisply captures the gripping journey that Channing will lead us through.”