Channing Tatum is Gambit, says 'X-Men' producer

Days of Future Past promises to fit more X-Men into an X-Men movie than any X-Men movie ever before. Naturally, the curious moviegoer is led to ask: Could the next X-Men movie possibly feature even more X-Men, as we evolve towards the ultimate singularity moment when life will be measured not in time but in unconfirmed X-Men casting rumors?

Current franchise steersman Bryan Singer has told French magazine Cine Premiere that he’d like to fit Gambit and Nightcrawler into 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse. Now series producer Lauren Shuler Donner has kinda-sorta-completely confirmed that Gambit will be joining the franchise…and that he’ll be played by Channing Tatum.

Talking to TotalFilm in a video interview, Shuler Donner is very bullish that Tatum is involved. (The 21 Jump Street star previously told MTV he was in serious talks for the role.) “He’s a rogue, Channing. He’s a rascal.” Shuler Donner doesn’t specifically say how Tatum would join the franchise, nor does she even come close to mentioning how Tatum’s Gambit will be different from Taylor Kitsch’s Gambit in that movie that never happened. (Worth pointing out that this could still be a pre-contract almost-definite thing, not a fully contracted definite thing.)

But there appear to be a few options for bringing Tatum into the fold. Besides Apocalypse and 2017’s Wolverine threequel, Shuler Donner tells TotalFilm that she is still pulling for a Deadpool movie and an X-Force spinoff. “X-Force is fascinating,” says Shuler Donner. “It allows us to be a little grittier.”

Notably, the producer doesn’t specifically mention a Young Storm spinoff starring Lupita Nyong’o, an X-Factor spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson as Strong Guy, or a Generation X spinoff set in the mid-’90s starring Shailene Woodley as Husk. But presumably all of those things might happen, because we live in a world where two different actors will play Gambit before anyone plays Holden Caulfield.