No tissues needed! Channing Tatum offered reassurance that his new film will not follow in Marley and Me’s tragic footsteps.
“I think Marley and Me scared everyone,” the Magic Mike actor, 41, revealed during a Tuesday, February 8, appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote Dog. “Every single person that I’ve told that I made a dog movie, they’re like, ‘I’m not going to see it unless you tell me if the dog lives.’”
When Tatum asked his loved ones why they would want a new movie’s ending spoiled, he was quick to learn they were less concerned with major reveals if it meant the precious dog character had a happily ever after.
“It’s a good ending, just so everyone knows,” the Alabama native teased to Jimmy Kimmel. “Yeah, yeah, don’t not see the movie just because you’re afraid of the dog [dying].”
Tatum stars as Army Ranger Briggs in Dog, which is set for release later this month. In the movie, Briggs takes a cross-country road trip with the canine companion to attend his late friend’s military funeral service.
While the Jupiter Ascending actor’s character isn’t the biggest fan of the military-trained pup in the trailer, Tatum is a bigger dog lover in real life. In fact, his Pitbull-Catahoula mix Lulu — who died in 2018 — inspired his fellow actor in Dog.
“[My aunt and uncle] just had a litter of these two legendary dogs called Dip and Daisy,” the actor explained during a Variety interview earlier this month. “Dip was this wide-eyed coyote-looking thing that impregnated every dog for, like, 100 miles. And he’d win any dog fight. And Daisy was this beautiful American pit bull mix. I took the runt, and that was Lulu.”
While the Step Up star’s upcoming film — which he codirected — promised a good ending for the Belgian Malinois military pooch, 2008’s Marley and Me didn’t fare as well. Based on a memoir of the same name, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston played a married couple who adopted the lovable yet destructive yellow lab puppy named Marley. The onscreen dog was eventually euthanized in his old age. After the emotional final scene, fans were left reeling over the faithful pup’s death.
“A year after my dog died, I was on a plane and Marley & Me was an in-flight movie,” The O.C.’s Ben McKenzie admitted to Entertainment Weekly in September 2014. “I cried so often that the gentleman to my right asked if I was OK. ‘No sir, I am not OK. My dog is dead.’”
Dog premieres in theaters on Friday, February 18.