Channing Tatum has wanted to play Gambit for a long time. “Hooh boy, you know how long I been waiting for this?” he says in an incomprehensible accent during Deadpool & Wolverine, showcasing how much of a dream come true it was for him to bring the character to life.
Back in 2017, there were plans for Tatum to take charge of his own solo movie, starring alongside Lizzy Caplan. Speaking to Business Insider, Caplan reveals just how close they were to shooting, and what the idea for the movie was.
“They wanted to do, like, a ’30s kind of screwball romantic comedy set in that world, which would have been really fun,” she said. “We got down the road, we were gonna shoot it. I think there was a start date. I had had meetings with Channing, and there were a couple different… we had a director, then we didn’t, but I had multiple meetings with Channing and the other producers.”
The film was scrapped in 2019 as Fox merged with Disney, but now that Tatum has shown the world what him as Gambit looks like, perhaps there is still potential for a solo movie somewhere down the line.