2016 is shaping up to be a big year for Fox and its X-Men franchise; not only do we get X-Men: Apocalypse and the long-awaited Deadpool, but the studio also has another spin-off in the works, with Channing Tatum set to take on the lead role in Gambit. Speaking to Empire in the latest issue of the magazine, Tatum offered up a few words on his preparation for the role of the Cajun card-throwing mutant, as well as an update on the film’s progress.
“I love Gambit,” states Tatum. “I grew up in the South. My father’s from Loiuisiana. We’d go to New Orleans and I heard all the dialects. It felt so different from the rest of America; it has its own ancient culture. So I identified with that. And Gambit always felt the most real of the X-Men to me. He’s kind of a tortured soul and he’s not a good guy. But he’s not a bad guy, either. He walks his own path. And of course he plays cards and drinks and is a martial-arts badass!”
“Josh Zetumer just turned in the first draft of the script and it’s killer,” he continues. “None of us were sure how he was going to deal with the X-Men world. But we’re going to be changing some of the tropes of these movies. It’s always about saving the world, but maybe we’re going to shift things a little bit. There’s so many ways you can take it. You could do it like Batman Begins, or a different take and go the Guardians of the Galaxy route. All I can say is, I’m super excited.”
Gambit is currently without a director, but has a release date set of October 7th 2016.