Channing Tatum seems delighted to play a catalyst for the shifting of tides in favor of a more feminist-bent pop culture state. If this is indeed his life’s work, you could confidently name Magic Mike XXL his magnum opus. Though indeed a tour de force in flipping the tradition of objectification across the gender divide—and with perhaps more joyful gusto than the big screen has seen this century—Tatum is not yet ready to give up on his ostensible mission statement. As Deadline reports, he’ll soon be the subject of a similar experiment in the form of a remake of Splash. In case you haven’t connected the dots yet: Tatum will be the mermaid.

Playing opposite Tatum—the Tom Hanks to his Daryl Hannah, so to speak—will be Jillian Bell, fellow 22 Jump Street star and a major driving force behind the development of this new project. In addition to a line of supporting parts in the likes of Jump Street, Seth Rogen’s The Night Before, and the sitcom Workaholics, Bell has established comic fortitude as the star of her own show Idiotsitter. What’s especially notable about the role is its apprehension of an archetype traditionally dominated by men: the adult child… not entirely unlike the sort that Tom Hanks made his living on in his Splash era.

Though we don’t know exactly what sort of character she’ll be playing in this newly announced Splash remake, we can surmise that the companionship of a comically proficient performer like Bell—one so gifted in the art of buffoonery—and the exceedingly ogle-worthy Tatum will work toward the undermining of an imbalanced gender dynamic established long prior to, but nonetheless upheld by, Ron Howard’s original fantasy film.

Following in the footsteps of another popular comedy movie from 1984 that recently incurred a gender-swapped remake, Splash is the perfect candidate for such an undertaking. Though effectively benign and ostensibly agenda-less, the film is, from its very bones on outward, a propagator of Hollywood’s lifelong favoring of the male vantage point. Parties like, but not limited to, Tatum and Bell are working to turn these tables and afford women the sorts of roles that have always and only gone to men (and vice versa). Remake fatigue or not, a gender-swapped Splash seems like a worthwhile endeavor for this day and age.

Featured Image: Buena Vista
Image: Channing Tatum/YouTube