While out promoting animated fable The Book of Life, star Channing Tatum has given MTV the current lowdown on how his role as card-throwing mutant Gambit is progressing.
“We’re finding a writer and sort of beating it out,” Tatum says of the solo movie, which is expected to follow the character’s debut in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
Created by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee in 1990, the New Orleans native mutant quickly became a fan favorite due to his kinetic energy manipulation abilities and penchant for stealing. His only big screen appearance to date was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, played by Taylor Kitsch. Tatum is clearly putting a lot of care in to redefining the Gambit for a new era of the cinematic mutantverse, and it sounds like the first film is going for a more character-oriented approach.
“I don’t want to give too much away, because we don’t know that much right now other than who Gambit is,” Tatum said. “We really do want to try our hardest to give something fresh. We’re obviously going to go to the saving the world superhero movies eventually, but maybe not for the first one. We want to introduce this character in a very different way. When you try to do something different, you never know right off the bat what that is. We’re feeling our way and really have to just prove that concept of that person.”
Though no writer or director have been attached to the project, it’s possible that “Gambit” could be the “Untitled FOX Marvel Movie” which is currently set for release on July 18, 2018.
