Channing Tatum Says He was ‘Traumatized’ By Failed ‘Gambit’ Movie
One of the big casualties of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox were the remaining X-Men movies the studio had in development at the time of the purchase. The projects included a solo movie for Gambit, the Cajun, card-throwing X-Man who would have been played by Channing Tatum. And according to the actor, he still hasn’t fully recovered from the project falling apart.
In an interview with Variety, Tatum’s producing partner Reid Carolin says his Gambit was on the “one-yard line” at the time, with the film cast, and the crew “on [their] way to shoot in New Orleans.” Tatum himself says he was so upset by the experience that he stopped watching Marvel movies entirely:
Once ‘Gambit’ went away, I was so traumatized ... I shut off my Marvel machine. I haven’t been able to see any of the movies. I loved that character. It was just too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him.
Tatum says his love for the character came from the fact that most superheroes dress in a “utilitarian” way while Gambit wears things that “walked down the Paris runway last year. He’s just wearing the stuff that’s so dope because he loves fashion.”
We’re still waiting to see how Marvel will relaunch the X-Men franchise. To date, the company has given no clues how or even when the series might return to either movies or television or both. (The other big Fox Marvel franchise, Fantastic Four, already has a movie in development from Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts.) When Marvel does remake X-Men, Tatum says he would still be interested in playing Gambit. So he may yet get his chance to put on that fashion forward superhero costume and talk in an outrageous Cajun accent.