Gambit: Channing Tatum Will “Still Call” Marvel Trying to Make the Movie Happen

With Gambit having been officially removed from the release schedule back in 2019, the long in development X-Men film is one of those projects that despite continuing to hold a lot of interest for fans and those involved, is simply a casualty of the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney a few years ago. And while most have moved on and accepted that the film isn’t going to happen, even Channing Tatum, who was set to star as the titular Gambit, still reaches out to Marvel from time to time about the project. In an interview with Vanity Fair (via Screen Rant), Tatum reveals that while it’s a project that he must let go of, calls still get made occasionally.

“It got swallowed up into Disney by way of Marvel when they bought Fox and ultimately, I just think that the tone of the movie we wanted to make was very far from what they wanted to do — or, you know, maybe they’re wanting to see how they do it with us or without us. We call every once in a while, but we’ve got to spiritually, emotionally, kind of mentally let it go.”

What would Gambit have been about?

It’s not clear exactly what Gambit would have been about, but the film’s screenwriter Reid Carolin has previously described the film as a “mutant Goodfellas” had Disney not scrapped it.

Speaking with The Playlist, Carolin called the script one of his favorites and then offered up details about the film’s New Orleans as a “city of mutants that didn’t care about saving the world.”

“We made this world in New Orleans that was a city of mutants that didn’t care about saving the world,” Carolin said. “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.”

How close was Gambit to being made?

Carolin also said that the film was just months away from filming when it was scrapped by Disney and in previous comments to Variety, he revealed just how close it all was.

“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.”

While the Gambit movie seems to be something that Disney has moved on from, especially with Marvel now back in control of the rights to the X-Men, Carolin did say that he’s hopeful the project could still come back in the future—and that he still thinks Tatum is perfect for the title role.

“Those guys at Marvel have a really good thing going and I’m sure they have a plan that I don’t know about for the X-Men universe and I’m not going to tell them how to do their jobs, they’re nailing it,” he said. “But I hold out hope that maybe someday it’ll come back—Channing is perfect for the role. And as long as they keep making Deadpool a character, he’ll need a world to play in… if they want some more characters like that, I think [they should] come our way.”

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