Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill on '22 Jump Street,' the Anti-Sequel Sequel
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill know that movie sequels are generally a bad idea. But their sequel, 22 Jump Street, they'd have you know, is different, taking aim at sequel stereotypes. In the opening, Nick Offerman's Deputy Chief Hardy scolds Tatum and Hill’s characters for trying new methods of police investigation, instructing them to once again go back undercover as pretend students. “Do the same thing,” he says. “Everyone’s happy.”
Yahoo Movies recently sat down with Tatum and Hill to discuss the wink-and-nod aspects of the movie -- and what it takes to make the college experience play on the big screen.
Yahoo Movies: What do you love most about the sequel clichés you poke fun of in the film?
Jonah Hill: It was Mike Bacall, one of our writers, who on the first draft just wrote a line that said: “They spent twice the money as if it will guarantee twice the success,” and I think everyone was just like, Whoa.
Channing Tatum: [Laughs] Super meta.
Hill: I think everyone read that line and it became the focal point of what we were trying to make.
Looking back on movie sequels, which had the biggest impact on you?
Hill: I have one. Well, The Godfather II is arguably better than the first Godfather, but I go to bat for Back to the Future Part II. I love it and here’s why: Back to the Future is considered a perfect screenplay. By screenwriters it's heralded as one of the most perfect screenplays ever written, and it's amazing. What they did in that one is they went back to the past, which already existed, so you already had a frame of reference for what that was. In Back to the Future Part II they created what they thought the future was going to be like, which is incredibly creative, and then if you look at people like Kanye West and how people are dressing and such, they’re literally dressing like Back to the Future Part II, like Marty McFly. I think it affected what the future became.
Tatum: I don't have an answer to compete with that.
Hill: I don't know, I think it was so creative. I’ve been thinking about this for years, this is what I put my time and thought into.
What do you like best about how movies portray college, and how does your movie do it differently?
Tatum: I think we point out in this movie, they're very clichéd. There’s the big dumb jocks, and I generally don't like how college movies do that, how the cool kids are the cool kids, nerdy kids hang with nerdy kids -- but we point it out in both films, so I like that. I think it's smart and it's a new way to do it, because I don't actually believe [school is] like that. I played Dungeons & Dragons in high school even though I was captain of the football team, but I still really liked what's considered nerdy stuff, so I don’t really believe in that, so that's the thing that bothers me.
Hill: There’s been Animal House, a classic college movie; Neighbors did a really good job, it’s such a funny movie, so fun. I think college is an interesting time, and ours is a fun perspective because it’s about old guys going back to college.
Why should people stay around for your credit sequence?
Hill: It’s my favorite credit sequence of any film I’ve ever been in, for sure.
Tatum: One of our biggest jokes is that we make fun of ourselves for making a sequel, because sequels suck for the most part -- and I’m making another one, I’m trying to make one out of Magic Mike, it’s hard -- so we tried to make fun of ourselves that if we make another one we’re the lamest people in the world.
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