Earlier this year, while stumping ‘White House Down’ alongside co-star Jaime Foxx, Magic Mike Channing Tatum expressed that if he were to play a comic book super hero, he’d want to portray Gambit, the shady Cajun X-Man.  Well, Hollywood jumped on that and just months later, Tatum has signed on to not only play the energy charged anti-hero, but to co-produce the film with his Free Association partner Reid Carolin along with  Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg.

The script will be penned by Josh Zetumer, who scripted this year’s ‘Robocop’ reboot and will be based on a treatment by legendary X-Men scribe Chris Claremont, who originally created Gambit along with a then-unknown artist named Jim Lee.  (Whatever happened to that guy?)  The shady character, reportedly inspired by the Vampire Lestat, from Anne Rice‘s famous ‘Vampire Diaries’ novels, quickly became a breakout fan-favorite… especially among female readers, who made up a huge portion of the ‘X-Men’ audience.  His appeal grew further when he was included on the long-running ‘X-Men’ animated series on Fox.

Gambit, a.k.a. Remy LeBeau, has the power to charge inanimate objects with kinetic energy, turning them into explosives.  He mainly chooses to charge playing cards, because they are compact and easy to throw once charged, but he can charge other objects, but the larger the object, the more energy it drains from his body.  He is also a master of the bo staff and a master thief having grown up in a criminal guild.

Tatum, who grew up in Louisiana says he relates to Gambit’s Cajun background and expressed he could do the character justice.  Taylor Kitsch played the character in ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘ in 2009, but the accent was one thing Kitsch couldn’t quite master.  Tatum seems confident that he can get that aspect of the character correct.  Plus, ‘Days of Future Past‘ negated much of what happened in ‘Origins’ and ‘X-Men 3’.

Sony previously announced plans to build a cinematic universe around Spider-Man, but their two most recent attempts have fallen short of expectation.  On the other hand, Fox’s ‘X-Men: First Class’, ‘The Wolverine‘ and ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ all surpassed expectation.  Fox announced ‘X-Men: Age of Apocalypse‘ well before ‘Days of Future Past’  was even released and recently added another ‘Wolverine’, ‘Deadpool’ and ‘X-Force’ to its slate.  There’s no word yet on what order in which these films will be released.

Gambit is a rare character that appeals to both male and female readers.  He’s cool, mysterious and sexy, something that men want to be, and something women want to be with.  Tatum manages to walk that same line as an actor, bouncing between schmaltzy love stories and bombastic action movies.  He can do a bro-friendly action/comedy like ’21 Jump Street’ and then get nekkid in ‘Magic Mike’ while never turning off either demographic.

There has been talk that Gambit will play a part in ‘Age of Apocalypse’, which would only help build interest in a solo movie.

Do you think Tatum will make a good Gambit?  Is the actor, or the character, strong enough to star in his own movie right off the bat?

Source: Cinema Blend