Channing Tatum Officially Signs on for GAMBIT!
Last week it didn't look like Channing Tatum was going to star in his X-Men solo film Gambit. The deal looked like it was going to fall apart, but it seems to have been saved! Tatum just closed a deal with 20th Century Fox to star in the movie.
As for all of that that drama we heard about, THR says, "Tatum and the studio did hit a sensitive spot in negotiations, but such back-and-forth is a normal part of top-level talent dealmaking."
They go on to say that it wasn't as serious as everyone was making it out to be, and explain that Tatum's "participation hardly was in any real danger because the actor already had invested quite a bit in the superhero part." The actor has been developing the project for years and even made a surprise appearance at Fox’s big panel at Comic-Con in July.
One of the biggest parts of the deal that needed to be figured out was with the actor's involvement with the rest of the X-Men franchise. They say, "Fox sees Tatum’s Gambit, a mutant who harnesses kinetic energy, as one of the anchor characters of the X-universe, akin to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, someone who would anchor his own movies and appear in numerous others. It’s a commitment that could theoretically last more than a decade."
They obviously managed to work everything out, though, and it sounds like Tatum's Gambit is going to lead the new generation of X-Men movies when Hugh Jackman leaves the franchise.
The film is set to be directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and it will be released in theaters on October 7th, 2016. What do you think about Gambit being the new anchor of the X-Men cinematic universe?