Channing Tatum Stars in HBS’s First-Ever “Live Case”

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Actor, Channing Tatum, recently starred in Harvard Business School (HBS)’s first-ever live case - on the business of movies. Tatum is currently enrolled as a student in HBS’s Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports executive education program taught by professor, Anita Elberse.

Fellow classmates – the roster includes LL Cool J and basketball legends Chris Paul and Pau Gasol – threw around ideas on how to innovate in the film industry and, more specifically, discussed the impact of dance movies on Hollywood. According to the HBS course's description, the students are taught to develop, manage and market a successful entertainment offering by “identifying and capitalizing on market disruptions.” One star-struck student tweeted that other cases discussed in the class include Jay Z, Walt Disney and Beyoncé. (You can read more about the business cases that center around Beyoncé and Jay Z elsewhere on TopMBA.com).

For prospective MBA students interested in careers in booming entertainment industries, there are options to pursue the degree with a specialization in sports management or media management.  

This is not the first Hollywood celebrity debut on university campuses this year. Last month, Academy Award-winning movie director, Steven Spielberg, spoke at Harvard University’s commencement ceremony. Matt Damon did the same, at MIT – the university at which his character in Good Will Hunting worked as a janitor. In advance of the ceremony, Damon jokingly commented that it was an honor to speak "at a school that I couldn't have gotten into” (though he did get into Harvard but dropped out one semester shy of a bachelor’s in English to pursue acting). Perhaps Damon will follow his Hollywood colleagues and have a second try with a business class at HBS instead?

The course ended on Saturday with thankful students waving goodbye in a video that Elberse called a “Channing-Tatum style” graduation.