Channing Tatum has been working to make a Gambit movie happen for quite some time. Now that those pesky minor details, like directors, have been sorted out things appear to be moving forward. There’s a lot of work for Tatum to do in order to create the character that he wants Gambit to be. According to a colleague however, he’s already well underway to doing the mutant cajun justice.
In an interview with ScreenRant, screenwriter Reid Carolin, the man behind the Magic Mike scripts, who is also Tatum’s friend and partner in their Free Association production company, was asked if it would be possible to hear Gambit’s cajun accent from Tatum. He talked a little about that, as well as some other work that he’s doing to perfect Gambit for the screen.
[Hearing the accent] probably is a spoiler but you should ask him. I don’t think he has it yet. Last night we were with my friend who I went to college with, this guy David Kwong who is an incredible magician and he was teaching Chan how to throw cards and do sleight of hand and all that.....
Card throwing is probably the single most important skill necessary to properly interpreting Gambit as a character so it’s good to know that he’s getting lessons from the right place. David Kwong has worked with Hollywood before, he was the head magic consultant on the surprise hit Now You See Me so he’s certainly the guy you want teaching you sleight of hand tricks.
While Tatum’s Gambit accent may be a spoiler we’d love to hear it as soon as he’s got it figured out. Gambit’s style is a large part of what has made him one of the most popular characters in the X-Men universe and the voice could make or break or that style.
All things considered, getting sleight of hand and speech lessons must feel like winning the lottery for the man who will be Gambit. He’s been working on trying to make Gambit into a movie for over a year. While most of the pieces have been in place for a while they spent a long time looking for somebody willing to direct the project. Now that Rise of the Planet of the Apes Rupert Wyatt is on board, they can finally get down to business.
While we were hoping for a bit of a Gambit preview in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse Channing Tatum recently killed that possibility, meaning we’ll have to wait until the spinoffs release in the fall of 2016. In order to hit that date filming will likely need to start soon. The guy better get to work polishing that accent.
