The X-Men are sitting on top of the movie world right now. The third official trailer for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past blew half of the Internet away when it dropped last night. A sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse, already is in play. But the potential for growth is always evident, and the already bustling cast of Fox’s mutant universe constantly teases new additions, or different versions of characters we have seen before.
Channing Tatum would like to be one of those "different versions." The Magic Mike and 22 Jump Street superstar has been attached to the card-tossing Gambit for a little while now… basically ever since X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner went on record to exclaim that Tatum would be her ideal choice to play Gambit on screen. Well, while accepting the Trailblazer Award at Sunday’s MTV Movie Awards, Tatum spoke with the network about conversations being held between his camp and the X-Men team, and it sounds like talks are further along than we might have imagined.
Tatum said:
I met with Lauren Shuler Donner. And I would love it. Gambit is really the only X-Man I’ve ever loved. I mean I’ve loved them all, they’re all great, but I guess from being down south – my dad’s from Louisiana, I’m from Mississippi, Alabama, Florida – I don’t know. I just related to him. He’s just kind of suave…He’s the most un X-Men X-Man that’s ever been in X-Men. Other than maybe Wolverine, who’s like the anti-hero. He’s a thief. He’s not even a hero. He’s kind of walking the line of grey. He loves women and drinking and smoking and stuff, so he’s just a cool guy who happens to have a moral center. I hope it [comes together]. You never know it’s a weird industry. If the stars align, I would die to play it. I’m already working on the accent. It’s crappy at the moment."
Listen to Tatum, and hear his comments in context. It really sounds like this can happen.
Gambit has been a fan-favorite of the X-books for years. He was portrayed on screen by box-office poison Taylor Kitsch in the standalone film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And while his take on the character wasn’t terrible, fans no doubt left that movie thinking that Gambit deserved better.
Tatum would be an amazing addition to X-Men: apocalypse if Singer wants to introduce Gambit to that storyline. He also has suggested bringing Nightcrawler and maybe Cyclops into that narrative, while Donner has floated the idea of standalone feature films for characters like Mystique, Deadpool and the Cajun card-tosser. Either way, the future for the X-Men series appears to be trending up.
