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Tatum had been developing a standalone Gambit movie since 2014.
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It was finally scrapped when the Disney/Fox merger happened.
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“I was so traumatized,” he told Variety.
Channing Tatum is still bitter about the scrapping of his standalone movie on the X-Men character Gambit. The actor admits he can’t even watch Marvel movies to this day.
“Once ‘Gambit’ went away, I was so traumatized,” Tatum told Variety in a new profile. “I shut off my Marvel machine. I haven’t been able to see any of the movies. I loved that character. It was just too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him.”
Since 2014 Tatum and his producing partner Reid Carolin tried to get a movie focused on the Cajun mutant thief off the ground at Fox, which made all the X-Men movies. But when Disney bought the studio in 2019 the project was canned.
“He could pull anything off,” Tatum told Variety of Gambit’s style and attitude. The magazine described the Tatum/Carolin project as having had a “raunchy” tone similar to “Deadpool.”
“Most superheroes, their outfits are utilitarian,” Tatum said of his draw to Gambit. “Batman’s got his belt. Gambit’s like, ‘No, this shit’s just fly, bro! This shit walked down the Paris runway last year.’ He’s just wearing the stuff that’s so dope because he loves fashion.”
Gambit — who can manipulate kinetic energy at will and often uses playing cards as weapons when energized with his power — has been on-screen previously. In the 2009 movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” Taylor Kitsch played the character, but the movie was not as big of a hit as the previous “X-Men” releases Fox made (this movie also marked the first time Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool).
Tatum couldn’t take on the character then due to his commitments to making “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” but he felt he would finally get the chance once producers liked him and Carolin’s pitch in 2014.
For four years directors like Doug Liman (the “Jason Bourne” movies) and Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise) were attached. Once Verbinski was attached, the project even got a 2019 release date. But Disney taking over Fox led to the project dying on the vine.
Tatum will next be seen in the movie “Dog,” which he and Carolin codirected, opening on February 18.
Read the original article on Insider
