This story contains major, MAJOR spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine. Seriously, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
If I had a nickel for every time a summer superhero blockbuster brought back a beloved actor to play a role from an unproduced film, I’d have two nickels—which admittedly isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. Like last year’s The Flash, which reached deep into Tim Burton lore for a back-for-the-first-time cameo by Nicolas Cage as Superman, Deadpool & Wolverine features the return of some classic Marvel characters from the pre-MCU 2000s. But one appearance might have left a few folks scratching their heads, and that's Channing Tatum, playing the X-Man known as Gambit.
A bit of context here first. (Deep breath.) The main plot of Deadpool & Wolverine involves the two heroes falling into the Void, which is where the Time Variance Authority—known as the TVA, and featured prominently in the Disney+ series Loki—sends discarded or troublesome characters to live out their days. In Loki, it was full of different versions of the show’s titular lead. In Deadpool & Wolverine, it's a sort of Mad Max wasteland full of a wide variety of characters, from Bryan Singer-era X-Men villains like Pyro and Toad to the film's primary antagonist, a new-to-the-big-screen villain called Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). Heroes are hard to find in this world, but around the film's midpoint, Deadpool and Wolverine encounter four of them—X-23 (Dafne Keen), Blade (Wesley Snipes), Elektra (Jennifer Garner), and Tatum, as the New Orleans-born master thief Gambit. (Long exhale.)
Tatum’s history with the Ragin' Cajun dates back to 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. The actor told GQ’s Chris Heath in 2014 that he was nearly cast in the part before the role was ultimately written out of the movie altogether. Considering how that film turned out, it’s probably for the best. Tatum was included in discussions to bring Gambit into X-Men Origins: Wolverine before scheduling conflicts with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra made him unable to participate. As such, Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch stepped into the role, and signed a deal to play the character in three solo movies—except, because Origins: Wolverine was, uh, quite poor, none of Kitsch's Gambit movies ever materialized.
Tatum mentioned to Heath that Gambit was “the only superhero I really followed.… He was the most real to me: smoking, drinking, women-loving, thief. He just looked cool to me. I’ve always loved him. And obviously he’s Cajun.” Tatum grew up near New Orleans, and his father was from the area. In May 2014, Tatum’s involvement in a solo Gambit project was confirmed, with plans to introduce the character in X-Men: Apocalypse, although that notion was later scrapped.
According to an alleged Reddit leak, writer Josh Zetumer turned in a script that featured Gambit pulling off a heist at the behest of an unknown employer. It’s revealed that the item in question is a young mutant girl named Sarah, and the employer is Nathaniel Essex, aka the X-Men villain Mister Sinister, who experimented on Sarah and other mutant newborns in pursuit of his own superiority. Oh, and Gambit is somehow Essex’s son. The film gained a director, Rupert Wyatt of Rise of the Planet of the Apes fame, and Léa Seydoux as the female lead. However, in September 2015, Wyatt exited, citing scheduling conflicts. He told Comics Beat in 2019 that the failure of the 2015 Fantastic Four reboot caused the budget to be “slashed quite considerably,” so much so that the script would need a rework, but “we were too close to a start date for Fox to really want to go there.”
From there, Gambit cycled through two different directors, Doug Liman and Gore Verbinski. Liman spent time reworking the script with Tatum, Reid Carolin (Tatum’s producing partner), Zetumer, and stalwart X-Men screenwriter Simon Kinberg, leaning into the door that the very first Deadpool opened. Kinberg told Collider the film would “have its own different flavor and tone to it, will be more of like a heist movie and a sexy thriller in a way.” Liman exited the project in 2016 due to script concerns. Work on the film continued apace until October 2017, when A Cure for Wellness (and inspired choice) helmer Gore Verbinski stepped into the director’s chair. From there, work sped up with Academy Award winner costume designer Jenny Beavan joining alongside cast members Lizzy Caplan and Lil Rel Howery. Verbinski left in January 2018 due to scheduling issues or creative differences, depending upon which trade you want to believe.
Kinberg, Carolin, and Zetumer continued working on the script, even with Fox's impending sale to Disney. According to Kinberg, the story shifted from a heist movie into a romantic comedy in the vein of Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets His Girl Friday. At one point, Tatum even expressed a desire to direct the film alongside Carolin. However, Tatum told Variety in 2022 that Fox “wanted anybody but us, essentially, because we had never directed anything.” Despite that, the film was getting close to finally going into production. “We were right on the one-yard line,” Carolin noted that in that same Variety piece. "We had cast the film. We’d opened up a production office. We were on our way to shoot in New Orleans.” But when Disney acquired Fox in 2019, the film was pulled from the schedule, which marked the end of Tatum's association with the character—until this year, and Tatum's appearance as Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine.
There's something poetic about this being the movie where Tatum finally gets his Gambit moment. Remember, the first Deadpool was stuck in a development hell of its own until someone leaked test footage a decade ago this month. The positive reception to that was enough for Fox to give the movie a green light. It’s a nice full-circle moment to see Deadpool & Wolverine find time to bring another Fox Marvel movie character to life after an up-and-down journey.
In Deadpool & Wolverine, Gambit is mostly a comic-relief character. There are a number of gags involving Tatum laying on the Cajun accent so thick that you can’t really understand what he’s saying; it’s sort of a redux of the “My name’s Jeff” moment from 22 Jump Street, only with Tatum in a comic-accurate costume, right down to the balaclava-style headpiece, trench, and purple chest piece. But he proves himself more than worth in combat, too, providing more than one explosive beat after another. Even in this brief appearance, Tatum’s read on the character feels like a loving tribute to the Gambit of X-Men: The Animated Series, which is especially bittersweet given the character’s sudden and moving death in X-Men ‘97 a few months ago. In fact, I probably would have watched a whole movie with Tatum’s take at the center — heist, rom-com, or otherwise — due to the strength of the passion that’s clearly on display.
Given the fact we don’t see Tatum’s Gambit die on screen in Deadpool & Wolverine, might we see him show up in Secret Wars? We wouldn’t bet on it. But given that Gambit was dead on arrival up until this week, another screen appearance might still be in the (explosively-charged) cards.