Channing Tatum’s Latest Message to Ryan Reynolds Is Heartbreaking: “I would kill kittens”

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ is the latest release from the MCU, and it has become a box office success, partly because it features some live-action Marvel characters from the past. We’ve seen Snipes’ Blade, Garner’s Elektra, and Evans’ Human Torch return, but the film also gave a chance for one character who was supposed to have his own movie almost 20 years ago.

If you’ve been following Channing Tatum or the movie’s promotion, you know that Gambit has a smaller role in the film. This might not seem like a big deal at first, but it’s significant when you consider the backstory and how long it took for Tatum to finally play him.

Tatum and Gambit have a long history together. The actor and his longtime friend and producer, Reid Carolin, had an idea for a Gambit movie that they wanted to pitch to 21st Century Fox.

They imagined it would be a standalone film similar to ‘Deadpool,’ filled with humor and adult themes. Although the Fox team liked the idea, they wouldn’t fully approve it if either Tatum or Carolin directed, since they had never directed before. Tatum really wanted the movie, so he accepted their terms.

However, things changed when Fox merged with Disney, which led to the cancellation of the Gambit movie before it could be developed.

After that, there was no news about Gambit until he appeared in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’ Following the movie’s release, Tatum received a lot of praise for his performance, and many fans started campaigns for him to get his own MCU movie.

Tatum cannot stop gushing about his most recent role and he cannot stop thanking Ryan Reynolds for giving him this opportunity of a lifetime.

The actor recently sat down with Jimmy Falon and discussed everything from his heritage to how much playing Gambit meant to him. Tatum explained that he waited for nearly 20 years to play the character:

I could cry, actually, I get really emotional ’cause I’ve been trying to, like, actively in the industry play that character for the last 20 years. But I was like, in, I don’t know, third grade throwing playing cards at my friends in, like, the living room.

The actor also explained that the road to a solo Gambit movie was difficult, and will continue to be difficult until it can be figured out what to do with the character in the larger MCU:

It was at Fox at first and we, I worked on it for, like, six years trying to get the standalone to happen. And then right on, like, the one-yard line, we were about to make the movie and then Fox got bought by Disney.

And like, Kevin, actually, he was, Kevin Feige runs Marvel, I love him so much. He literally was like, “Look, I love Gambit, I just don’t know how to do it right now, like I don’t know how he fits into what we’re doing and so I need to, like, I need to have a minute to like, figure it out.”

Now we’ve sort of cracked a little bit of the code and hopefully…Hopefully, I mean […] I would kill kittens to make a… I would do lots of terrible things to make that happen.

Tatum also reiterated once again how grateful he is to Ryan Reynolds for giving him the opportunity for his childhood dream to come true.

Ryan, I’ve said this before…Look, this industry is a really interesting thing. And like, I can honestly say that not one single person is just more of a class act and cares more than that man.

Like, he took Gambit out of truly, like, the grave. Like it was just nothing and nowhere, and he was like “No, man, I want this, I want this for you I want this in the movie, and like, I want to see it.” And he made it happen, and I’ll forever be grateful to him. […] He truly is, like, he’s everything you want him to be.

Tatum’s chances of portraying Gambit in a solo movie, or at least in the MCU are rather good considering that ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ marked the beginning of a mutant era in the MCU. There’s also that live-action reboot movie currently being developed so, fingers crossed.

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