Channing Tatum starred as Gambit alongside Wesley Snipes’ Blade and Jennifer Garner’s Elektra in Marvel’s current box office success, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’ Ryan Reynolds recently posted the actor’s photos in costume on Instagram and commented:
“Gambit is a guy Chan was born to play. His story is similar to my road on Deadpool – in that Chan spent a decade trying to put the most comic-accurate version of Gambit on the big screen. Remy LeBeau is grafted to his soul and needs to come out and deal. Some characters can only exist with a one in a billion pairing and this is it. Gambit found his author in Chan. He’s one of the coolest, smartest characters in comics and still largely unexplored.”
He continued:
“I want more — and from what I saw in theaters, you do too. Having the chance to say goodbye to some of these heroes is as important as having new characters to root for… and rooting for Gambit is easy. Rooting for Chan is even easier. He’s one of the greatest, hardest working, kindest people in this entire industry. I couldn’t be more thrilled to see Channing Tatum pull Gambit from the dead and bring him to life at the perfect time and perfect way.”
Channing Tatum’s Efforts To Play Gambit
20th Century Fox announced a Gambit project with Channing Tatum in the lead among other projects including the first ‘Deadpool’ at San Diego Comic-Con in 2015, but the standalone spinoff didn’t move forward.
The studio had talks with several filmmakers like Rupert Wyatt, Doug Liman, and Gore Verbinski to work on Channing Tatum’s ‘Gambit,’ but the X-Men franchise producer Simon Kinberg said in 2019 that the project was ‘being evaluated’ after Disney’s acquisition of Fox.
The actor reportedly reached out to directors Bennett Miller, Darren Aronofsky, Gareth Evans, and J.C. Chandor to make the movie, as well, until the studio cancelled it.
Special Thanks To Reynolds From Tatum
Tatum thanked Ryan Reynolds for reviving Gambit years later for ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ in a recent Instagram post. He shared two decade-apart photos from Comic-Con with his co-star and wrote:
“I sat in the audience when Ryan showed his first peek of ‘Deadpool 1’ to the world, and I think I ran backstage right after and found him, and I think I just hugged him and was like, ‘Holy sh*t, you did it, man.’ It’s perfect. I didn’t know him really at all back then. But since then, I can say that there is almost no one that has had my back in this industry more than Ryan.”
He went on:
“I thought I had lost Gambit forever. But he fought for me and Gambit. I will owe him probably forever. ’Cause I’m not sure how I could ever do something that would be equal to what this has meant to me. I love ya, buddy. Shawn Levy, as well. Truly such a brilliant creator on every single level.”
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ earned over $800 million worldwide since its release. The film currently holds an 8/10 rating on IMDb and a 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
