Channing Tatum is attached to star in the big-screen adaptation of Craig Clevenger's acclaimed 2002 debut novel "The Contortionist's Handbook," the actor's representation at UTA has confirmed to TheWrap.
Tatum will play John Vincent, a young man born with an extra finger on one hand, whose disfigurement leads to an interest in sleight-of-hand. Escaping his troubled past, John grows up to be a drug-addicted forger whose strict code of conduct keeps him from getting caught while assuming various identities. He begins to break his own rules when he falls for a beautiful woman with her own dark secret.
GreeneStreet Films and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment will finance the project as a co-production between those companies and Das Films, whose Sriram Das will produce with Sidney Kimmel, Tim Williams and GreeneStreet's John Penotti.
Tatum and Reid Carolin will co-produce through their production company 33andout, while Robin Shushan wrote the adapted screenplay.
Screen Daily previously reported that Miguel Sapochnik ("Repo Men") would direct,the film, but it's unclear whether that remains the case.
Tatum recently starred in "Dear John" and wrapped Steven Soderbergh's "Haywire." He'll finish filming Ron Howard's infidelity comedy "The Dilemma" before segueing to "The Vow," a drama that will pair him with Rachel McAdams. Tatum next stars in Kevin Macdonald's "The Eagle," in which he plays a Roman soldier who sets out to uncover the truth behind his father's disappearance. 
He's also set to star in Dito Montiel's crime thriller "Son of No One," and is attached to two more films — the romantic sci-fi epic "Ion" and the drug addiction drama "What's Left of Us."
"The Contortionist's Handbook" isn't scheduled to start production until early next year.
You can check out Tatum in "Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo," a short film directed by his "G.I. Joe" co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, at HitRecord.org.
