Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2013

With so many US-presidency-under-siege movies out there, how are you to know which one is for you? Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx are hoping you will choose White House Down.

“It is an entertaining movie, although it is about something dark,” Tatum said at the recent New York premiere for the film about a massive attack on Washington DC. The 33-year-old actor joined costar Foxx on a faux-presidential motorcade to the event, where female fans in bright red T-shirts emblazoned with his own first name overwhelmed him.

In the Roland Emmerich-directed popcorn flick, Tatum plays a Secret Service agent who must think fast to protect the prez (Foxx) when terrorists take over 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The plot is strikingly similar to that of recent production Olympus Has Fallen. The Gerard Butler film has been released in Japan as End of White House, only adding to the confusion between the two would-be summer blockbusters.

Tatum was thrilled with the casting of the POTUS role in his film. “There are not many people who can play the president,” he said. “We could have done the dusty version, but this is not a dusty time, when we have the first black president in office. So hopefully this will be a turn [in the way the president is portrayed]. And I got to work with Jamie, who is awesome.”

White House Down opens in Japan Aug 16