Channing Tatum is ending his relationship with the Weinstein Company. Amid the wave of accusations of sexual harassment pinned to Harvey Weinstein and recently his brother and TWC co-founder Bob Weinstein, the actor and producer took to social media to announce that he has pulled his project, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock — a story dealing with the issue of sexual abuse — from TWC and will not work with the company on any future endeavors.
Tatum’s statement read:
“Our lone project in development with TWC — Matthew Quick’s brilliant book, Forgive Me Leonard Peacock — is a story about a boy whose life was torn asunder by sexual abuse. While we will no longer develop it or anything else that is property of TWC, we are reminded of its powerful message of healing in the wake of tragedy”.
The film, about a high school student who plans to kill his best friend and then himself, would mark Tatum’s directorial debut alongside Reid Carolin. In addition to co-directing and co-producing via his Free Association banner and along with Peter Kiernan, Tatum would also potentially star.
Since the scandal broke with The New York Times and The New Yorker articles detailing alleged accounts of Weinstein’s sexually depraved behavior, Hollywood has moved swiftly to disassociate with the company, removing the TWC moniker from all of the company’s TV series including Project Runway, Yellowstone with Kevin Costner for Paramount TV and Amazon’s new drama from David O. Russell starring Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore as well as films like Disney’s Artemis Fowl.
Perhaps Tatum’s last part of his statement says it best:
“The truth is out — let’s finish what our incredible colleagues started and eliminate abuse from our creative culture once and for all.”
