Channing Tatum to Star in New Action Movie From Deadpool Director
Channing Tatum has officially found his next action franchise. On Thursday, reports indicated that Tatum is set to star in Red Shirt, a spy thriller directed by Deadpool's David Leitch. While plot details are vague, the story is based on an original pitch by X-Men alum Simon Kinberg, and is reportedly "a new spin on James Bond that has franchise potential." This will be the latest time that Tatum and Leitch are working together, after Tatum cameoed in this summer's Bullet Train.
Kelly McCormick and Leitch are producing under their 87 North production banner; Tatum is producing through his company Free Association; and Kinberg is producing through his Genre Films.
Will Channing Tatum play Gambit?
Amid Tatum joining new projects and fictional worlds, some Marvel fans have still wondered if he will ever get an opportunity to play Remy LeBeau / Gambit, the fan-favorite X-Men character who was supposed to lead his own solo movie. Due to the merger between Disney and 20th Century Fox, the project was canned just months before beginning production — something that the cast and crew were reportedly disheartened by.
"We made this world in New Orleans that was a city of mutants that didn't care about saving the world," screenwriter Reid Carolin said in an interview with The Playlist earlier this year. "They went there so they could use their powers to party and hook up, and their hands could fry the grease at McDonald's and whatever else and the hardest thing for them to do was to fall in love because they could read each other's minds, or when they got into a fight, they could turn a table into a grenade and send their partner to the hospital or whatever. So, it was all this kind of low-level mutant fights and disagreements, and we sit in this world of the Mafia—almost kind of like a mutant Goodfellas in New Orleans."
"We were right on the one-yard line," Carolin said. "We had cast the film. We'd opened up a production office. We were on our way to shoot in New Orleans."
What do you think of Channing Tatum's new movie? Will you be tuning in to Red Shirt? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
h/t: Deadline