Channing Tatum Was Scared Of Marvel

According to the star, he has something of a ritual when it comes to his onscreen roles. Specifically, he likes to bring home his very last outfit of each production he is in as a kind of sartorial souvenir. However, Channing Tatum insisted that he was too scared to ask Marvel if he could bring the Gambit costume home, a fear that seems that much funnier because it’s hard to imagine Disney having much use for this mutant outfit now that the movie is in theaters.

And if Channing Tatum was too scared to ask Marvel for the outfit, he was definitely too scared to engage in Plan B: stealing it. To hear him tell the story, having sticky fingers has been the real key to those souvenirs we mentioned earlier. “Usually, I steal the very last outfit that I’m in, in every movie,” he said.

Had he wanted to run away with this particular outfit, he would probably have been cheered on by star Ryan Reynolds, who did the same thing when filming the first Deadpool movie. Reynolds previously discussed both his thievery and the sheer passion for the character and film that led to the theft: “I loved wearing it and I have run away with one…I’ll probably get into trouble for saying that, but I’ve waited 10 years to do this movie so I’m leaving with a f*cking suit.” Strangely enough, both he and Channing Tatum also share the experience of waiting a decade to bring a Marvel character to life.

The first time we saw Gambit onscreen was in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where the role was played by Taylor Kitsch. Channing Tatum was considered for this early Marvel role but was not available for this cameo despite earlier plans for him to star in a Gambit feature film (just one more thing you can blame those G.I. Joe movies for). In May 2014, Tatum signed on to finally make that Gambit movie, but he had trouble personally finding the right director, and Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox ultimately killed this project.

This is why, of course, the character appearing in Deadpool & Wolverine is so brilliant: that film features a wasteland of multiversal rejects, which was mostly a narrative excuse to bring back older Marvel big-screen characters like Blade, Elektra, and Johnny Storm. Gambit appears as more of a real-life reject…Channing Tatum’s dream Marvel character whose solo film never saw the light of day. By the time this new movie of mutant mayhem was released, it had been over a decade since Tatum’s Gambit movie was announced, so we wouldn’t fault him for wanting to bring home the suit.  

Of course, his fear might actually be a bit of quiet optimism: Channing Tatum didn’t elaborate on why he was so scared of Marvel, but it’s possible he just didn’t want to upset the House of Mouse after finally getting to play the ragin’ Cajun onscreen. Audience reception to his character has been very positive, and in a multiverse of possibilities, there’s always a chance we’ll see Tatum suiting up onscreen yet again.

As for the long-awaited solo film, that may not be in the cards, but we’d never bet against Gambit, a character who defies the odds almost as much as he defies the English language.

Source: Vanity Fair