[SPOILERS] capped off a debut 20 years in the making.
Deadpool & Wolverine is Marvel Studios’s love letter to the 20th Century Fox superhero films that paved the way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Going into its theatrical debut, Deadpool & Wolverine promotional material placed Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s titular mutants at the forefront, weaving the two popular X-Men into the MCU alongside a family of familiar faces. Deadpool & Wolverine trailers revealed that Aaron Stanford’s Pyro (X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand), Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth (X-Men), Dafne Keen’s X-23 (Logan) and many more would be reprising their roles within The Void, the Time Variance Authority’s wasteland where variants go to rot.
WARNING – The rest of this article contains major spoilers from Deadpool & Wolverine.
Veteran Actor Makes Long-Awaited Debut as Popular X-Man
Not all of those Deadpool & Wolverine cameos were reprisals.
As Deadpool & Wolverine approaches its third act, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra pulls Wade Wilson and Logan into a hideout within The Void. She then introduces her newfound tenants to the other variants taking refuge with her: Wesley Snipes’s Blade and Channing Tatum’s Gambit.
Tatum’s Gambit ended up being much more than a cameo, as he factored into the second half of the movie as a full-blown supporting character. He had multiple scenes with the aforementioned crew and fought off Cassandra Nova’s variety of variants with his signature strikes, utilizing both his charged playing cards and his bow staff.
Channing Tatum’s Lengthy History With Gambit Explained
Channing Tatum’s debut as Gambit has been 20 years in the making.
Back when X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) was in production, X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer intended to utilize Gambit in a large role, but he did not end up returning to helm the threequel. Tatum was preemptively selected to play Gambit in The Last Stand but the character ended up being written out of the script before he was officially cast.
Flash forward to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), conflict came in the other direction. Gambit was locked into the film’s script, but this time it was Tatum who had the conflict, as he would be filming GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra while X-Men Origins: Wolverine was going to be in production. Taylor Kitsch was cast instead, signing a three-picture deal. X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s poor performance critically shelved future plans for more X-Men Origins movies and also essentially axed Kitsch’s Gambit’s next steps.
The stars seemed to finally align for Tatum come the mid-2010s. X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner revealed in January 2014 that plans for a Tatum-led Gambit film had commenced. Tatum officially signed on to star in the standalone that May. Fox planned to introduce Tatum’s Gambit in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and launch his franchise after. Tatum would make his first (and only) public appearance as Gambit at San Diego Comic-Con 2015, showing face on the Hall H stage alongside the cast of X-Men Apocalypse and Deadpool (2016). Fox was all in on the character, as the studio reportedly intended to have Tatum’s fill the shoes that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was about to leave empty.
Momentum ended up peaking at SDCC. Gambit cycled through director after director, first landing Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) in June 2015. Wyatt dropped out that September due to scheduling conflicts and a drastic budget change. Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) was then in final talks to replace Wyatt with filming scheduled for March 2016. Liman left Gambit later that summer in what was described as a “mutual split.” Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) was the next and final director attached to the project, which now eyed a March 2018 production start. Verbinski dropped out shortly after, scheduling conflicts and creative differences cited.
In a last ditch effort to get Gambit off the ground, Tatum expressed interest in directing the film himself alongside producing partner Reid Carolin in January 2019. Disney officially acquired Fox just a couple of months later and cancelled Gambit outright that May.
Five years after Tatum’s Gambit appeared to get the death nail, the 21 Jump Street star fulfilled his career’s biggest what if in Deadpool & Wolverine. There’s no word on whether Marvel Studios plans to use Tatum as Gambit again, but considering the sandbox of the multiverse, anything is possible.
Deadpool & Wolverine is now in theaters.
