Too often we hear of film projects falling apart when a director/star walks away or, in the more common scenario, a studio pulls the plug altogether. From Fantastic Four 2 to Sony’s fabled Sinister Six crossover, you don’t have to search too far to locate a big-name project that failed to get off the ground. Thankfully, Gambit isn’t one of them.
Yes, the X-Men spinoff has encountered one setback after another since it was first announced, but despite all those frustrating false starts, Channing Tatum remains attached to headline as the ice-cool Remy LeBeau. That’s the real name of the titular hero, a card-playing Cajun who hails from New Orleans. Originally portrayed by Taylor Kitsch in the widely derided X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the torch has since been passed over to Tatum, whose long-time affinity for the character stretches all the way back to childhood.
Speaking in a new interview with Strait Times (via ComicBook.com), Tatum gushed about Gambit, before recalling his own time spent cosplaying as the super-cool mutant with a broom handle, cards, and the power of imagination.
Not only that, but Channing Tatum fell in love with the Gambit character because of his eccentric nature. He wasn’t just a “vanilla American,” as Tatum tells Strait Times, but a “cool Cajun guy” with an actual culture to him.
There wasn’t a comic store, but the cartoon was on TV and he was this cool Cajun guy, and he was the easiest person to play as a kid because you could just unscrew the broom handle, get a pack of cards and wrap a bandana around your head. We had a lot of fun throwing cards and trying to take our friends’ eyes out across the living room. He is just cool, man. He is one of the few superheroes that has an actual culture to him. He doesn’t talk like a vanilla American. He is from a specific geo-location, New Orleans, which is a really specific thing.
Gambit may be trucking along in pre-production at a glacial pace, but the wider X-Men universe couldn’t be healthier. As things stand, Fox has mapped out plans for three high-profile tentpoles in 2018 – namely New Mutants, Deadpool 2 and X-Men: Dark Phoenix – while also staking out release dates for six mystery Marvel movies, the details of which are yet to be revealed.
