Hollywood hottie Magic Mike thesp Channing Tatum is in talks to produce and star in a biopic about TV's top daredevil, Evel Knievel for Columbia Pictures.
The actor will also produce the film alongside his partner Reid Carolin who will write the screenplay based on the Stuart Baker's 2008 biography ‘Life of Evel: Evel Knievel.'
Mike DeLuca and Dana Brunetti, who just landed the hotly contested Fifty Shades of Grey will also produce.
Tatum will next be seen in Steven Soderbergh's The Bitter Pill alongside Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and in the action sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which was pushed back by Paramount from its summer 2012 slot to March 29th, 2013.
Knievel reached the height of his fame in the 1970s, but he spent several years in relative obscurity before has had career resurgence in the 1990s.
Check out his famous jumps (and disastrous attempts), from 1968 to 1976, including Caesar's Palace, LA Coliseum, Cow Palace, Wembley Stadium, Snake River Canyon…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYS75bF9IJQ[/youtube]
Here's the Life of Evel plot summary:
A searching and at times harrowing re-appraisal of the life of Evel Knievel, the seventies American icon and the greatest daredevil motorcyclist that ever lived. Now fully updated in paperback with the story of the last few years of his life and his death in 2007. Stuart Barker's definitive biography captures the super-star status that Knievel held and also examines the marketing phenomenon of a man who once boasted he ‘made $60 million and blew $63 million'. Born in the town of Butte, Montana in 1938, Robert Craig Knievel was an outstanding athlete, ski jumper and ice hockey player at school. His early jobs included working in the copper mines and driving a bus as well as a stint in the US Army, but he always subsidised his income through crime (‘I could crack a safe with one hand tied behind my back quicker than you could eat a hamburger with two.') He used bikes to escape from the police and eventually hit upon the idea of jumping them after seeing a stunt driver jump cars at a state fair. His first jump took place over two mountain lions and a box of rattlesnakes, and he soon developed his act into the ‘Evel Knievel Motorcycle Daredevils' before embarking on a solo career. Knievel suffered 37 breaks and fractures during his daredevil career. In 1967 he spent 29 days in a coma after an attempt to jump over the fountains outside Caesar's Palace casino in Las Vegas. While recovering, he decided to make his goal to jump the Grand Canyon, an attempt he was forced to abort by the US Government; and later was paid $1 million for jumping over 13 double-decker buses at Wembley Stadium. Now, a quarter of a century after he last stepped off a motorcycle, he has been reborn as the originator of Xtreme sports. This, alongside his love of gambling, women and drinking, ensure his legend will live forever. Life of Evel is the story of a truly extreme personality. (Amazon)
