X-Men Producer Wants Channing Tatum For Gambit

[Fanghawk]

X-Men Producer Wants Channing Tatum For Gambit

X-Men's ragin' Cajun might get his own standalone movie, with a 21 Jump Street and White House Down star filling the title role.

Speaking personally, I've never quite understood the appeal of Gambit. His entire identity can be summed up as "mysterious Cajun", and outside of an ongoing storyline where he loved Rogue but couldn't touch her, he didn't seem to have much of interest going on. But maybe that's just me. After all, many X-Men fans seem rabidly affectionate for the character, which was the main reason Gambit appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner doesn't want to stop there. She believes that Gambit has enough draw to carry an entire standalone X-Men movie by himself, and is pushing Fox Studios to make Channing Tatum its star.

"I'm dying to do a Gambit movie with Channing Tatum," Shuler Donner said. "That doesn't have to be a great big movie. It's a thief in New Orleans, it's a whole different story. He's on board, and I have to get the studio on board. How can anyone resist Channing? He's such a sweetheart."

Apparently the only person more interested in a Tatum-led Gambit movie is Tatum himself, which he proved at a White House Down press conference last year. "I would like to play Gambit," Tatum explained. "Gambit's my favorite. I'm from New Orleans, around that area. My dad's from New Orleans, and I like to do a Cajun accent. I could do it for real. No knock on Taylor Kitsch, though, 'cause I actually like his Gambit, but I've always lived around Cajun people. Gambit was always like the woman-loving, cigarette-smoking, drinking guy. He was the punk rock of all the superheroes. He's a thief. He kind of rode the line."

Given that the core X-Men movies <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131688-X-Men-Days-of-Future-Past-Reveals-New-Characters-and-Costumes>are quickly reaching critical mass in characters and convoluted plotlines, taking a step back with a small-scale story isn't a bad idea. I'll even admit that Tatum could pull off Gambit in a way that makes for a fun action flick. That being said, assuming Rogue is still with Iceman in this cinematic universe, Gambit's going to need something original to brood over for a full-length feature film.

Source: Bleeding Cool

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[Kenbo Slice]

Channing Tatum is probably one of the worst choices for Gambit.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

[HEADING=1]nooooooooooooooooooooo![/HEADING]

*cough*

Channing Tatum would be the very last person I would pick to play Gambit, and that pick would be a sure fire way of me not watching that movie. I don't even think he's that good of an actor.

I might be a bit biased because I think Gambit is just awesome, but oh, hell no.

 

[tdylan]

Channing Tatum is probably one of the worst choices for Gambit.

No, no, no. For you see..."Channing Tatum is a well known actor." That's all the criteria that matters. "Resembles the character?" "Is known for his ability to reproduce an impeccable Cajun accent?" Pssh-shaw! Small potatoes. What matters is that people know not who Gambit is, but who Channing is. THAT's what it takes to make a movie successful.

Saracasm aside, Gambit obviously works in the comicbook universe, but does anyone else have reservations about a movie centered solely around him? What I mean is, his mutant ability is cool, until you stop to think about what it is. Gambit has the ability to blow practically anything the eff up! How do you limit that to make battle scenes realistic, without finding contrived ways of gimping him. They found a good way of increasing the tension in Thor 2 (IMO) by having him fight beings superior to himself. But fighting gods and demons has always been Thor's thing. I'm worried the "why doesn't Gambit just blow up everything" question. As a part of the X-Men, you could say he's practicing restraint because "the team/respect for Xavier's principals." But on his own, I don't know. They limited Havoc in First Class, and Cyclops is always at the mercy of his Visor. Gumbo doesn't really have any such limitations. At least, not when I stopped ready, which admittedly was just after the events of Brand New Day/World War Hulk

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Hm...perhaps the movie could be about the constant on again, off again battle between the Guild of Thieves and the Guild of Assassins? Is that still a thing in the X-men universe? Sorry, my knowledge on Gambit only comes from the X-MEN cartoon back in the nineties, and the few roles he had in Wolverine and the X-men. But I would like to see a movie starring him, so long as it's done well.

 

[Jupiter065]

I also never understood the appeal of Gambit. Then again, I never understood the appeal of Channing Tatum.
Maybe it's a perfect match!

 

[SanguiniusMagnificum]

I also never understood the appeal of Gambit. Then again, I never understood the appeal of Channing Tatum.
Maybe it's a perfect match!

Well, let me try and explain.

Gambit: Has a sweet coat that some artists tend to combine with horrible chestplates (look at it!!! LOOK! AT IT!!! IT'S JUST SO PINK!!! OH, GOD, IT HURTS, IT HUUUUUUURTS!!!!!), talks with a surly Cajun accent, can blow stuff up by touching it (but mostly uses playing cards) and he's a thief. So he's kind of a loveable rogue combined with the gambler archetype. Fun character to use in a comedy-action movie.

Channing Tatum: Has abs, played a male stripper.... Okay, I'm at a loss.

 

[Jaximus Decimus]

Of course Taintum wants to play Gambit in a movie. I want a 30 foot mech. Just because you want something doesn't make it a good idea. This would be almost as bad as if they cast Ben Affleck as Batman, hahaha.

Oh God no...

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I think he can pull it off, he does have a strange charm about him. Vocal coaching can get the accent down, so thats not a problem and his physique fits. All in all there could have been worse choices. Plus after 21 Jump Street my respect for him jumped (no pun intended) multitudes.

 

[Angelous Wang]

I also never understood the appeal of Gambit.

He is the mutant equivalent of Han Solo, the lovable scoundrel archetype, bad boy turned good and ladies man.

Plus they gave him a trench coat and an awesome power.

His power is actually control of all kinesis (the whole of kinesis, not just a part like tele/pyro/cryo/electro), which mean effectively means he can control all the energy and movement in universe. However 99% of the time the writers limit him to just kinetically charging and exploding. Though there have been a few times (especially in the ultimate universe) when they have given him his full power and Gambit pretty much owns everyone.

In a way he is much like Jean Grey and Rouge in that he is an Omega level mutant that get major de-powered down unless he is the centre of the story.

Shaw actually had a similar power to Gambit in the first class move except Shaw was much weaker and had to absorb energy whilst gambit does not.

 

[ellers07]

For the record, reboots annoy me. However, I have never wanted a movie series to be rebooted as badly as I want the X-Men to be. Unfortunately, this Gambit casting news makes me wonder if it might actually be possible to make a rebooted X-Men series worse than what we've had recently.

 

[anthony87]

Matthew McConaughey for Gambit!!!!

 

[Seracen]

[reads title] Huh...you're serious? I'd post the requisite JJ Jameson video, but everyone knows that gag.

Kudos to Tatum for being a fan, seems like he'd want to do the character justice. I just don't see it happening with him.

My original pick of Dougray Scott is too old at this point, but I think Vincent Cassel would be an instant shoe in...

Plus, having the natural French accent wouldn't hurt.

 

[Therumancer]

I've heard worse ideas even if I'm hardly a Channing Tatum fan. That said, it seems mostly like a gimmick to release another "X-men" related movie doubtlessly to hold up the possibility of the properties reverting back to Marvel/Disney who I'm sure would love to have them right now.

As far as Gambit goes, I'll say that if you think his romance with Rogue is the most defining thing about him, you probably haven't read much about the character. Truthfully I blame the X-men cartoons and some of the later works for making that such a huge focus for the character...

The thing is though that there is some truth to Gambit being summarized as "Mysterious Cajun" but I tend to think more in terms of "Heroic Sleazebag" or "The Han Solo Of The X-men". He's not really a character that works well on his own, being designed for a team book pretty much for the get go where his particular character traits can play off of other heroes, and his criminal backround can justify the use of specific skills and contacts by the team.

Really if they were going to do Gambit they might want to focus on his other major "love" interest (note the quotes). One of the more powerful enemies of the X-men is an ancient mutant necromancer/vampire/death manipulator called Selene who was formerly the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club (Emma was the White Queen). She has been positively obsessed with Gambit in the most psychotic way since like forever. Power level wise, well... all I can say is "Necrosha", when she cuts loose her power level is pretty insane. The movie continuity is different and setting something up between those characters would give them an opportunity to have Gambit fight both regular zombies, and resurrected versions of those fallen in other X-men titles. It could also act as a bridge to bringing back some of the dead heroes if say Selene pulled them back, gave them new forms, and then somehow they came back to life when she was eventually defeated. The fact that she's in love with Gambit also provides the reason why she wouldn't just destroy him outright, and give him an opportunity to come up with something to turn the tables on her... basically she's another big recurring element behind the character.

I'd also say that Gambit was oddly created for PC reasons according to some rumors. The basic idea was they wanted to have a character with criminal skills in the X-men. Storm was filling this role for quite a while, having been a street thief as well as worshipped at one time as a goddess (her backround is simply put, pretty complicated). It was however viewed as being kind of racist allegedly, so they decided to bring in a new character to do the thief thing after a while, and had Storm focus on being more regal and playing up a sort of "high born" heritage, although her criminal backround does still come up once in a while when the story requires it. If anyone is wondering (since I know the question has been asked before) this is also why the "Ultimate" version of Storm was defined as being a Car Thief. In changing/separating the characters they decided to pretty much go full tilt with the thief side of the character since the mainstream universe was neglecting it in favor of leading with the whole windrider/viewed as a goddess thing. I guess whoever decided to do Ultimates didn't figure it wasn't a big deal anymore.

I point this out because the X-men movies have also gone with a more regal storm, and less I missed something, nothing has ever implied the movie version has anything like a criminal/street backround behind her. As a result if they ever did a movie plot involving the Underworld, Gambit would be a good character to cross over into it, again covering for the way Storm was written, as he was always intended to more or less be her stand in for this... or so I've heard.

 

[Strain42]

I also never understood the appeal of Gambit. Then again, I never understood the appeal of Channing Tatum.
Maybe it's a perfect match!

That's more or less how I feel about this. I don't care for Gambit or Tatum, so what reason do I have to complain?

I'd be more concerned if an actor I really liked was up for the role.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Oh man, Gambit was always my favourite in the cartoons! I never did understand why he stuck to using playing cards when he could demonstrably just dump energy into anything. A Gambit film could be pretty cool.

Now, who is this Channing Tatum fella...
*Googles*

... Please, no.

 

[Shocksplicer]

[reads title] Huh...you're serious? I'd post the requisite JJ Jameson video, but everyone knows that gag.

Kudos to Tatum for being a fan, seems like he'd want to do the character justice. I just don't see it happening with him.

My original pick of Dougray Scott is too old at this point, but I think Vincent Cassel would be an instant shoe in...

Plus, having the natural French accent wouldn't hurt.

Wow, Cassel would be a really good idea. Kinda makes my suggestion of Timothy Olyphant pale in comparison, but dammit I still think he'd make it work!