This whole thing started a few months ago while doing an interview for “White House Down,” Channing Tatum was asked which superhero he would most like to play, Tatum then replied back with the name Gambit. The gambling, professional thief, “ladies man,” “ragin’ Cajun,“ X-men member, that can control & manipulate kinetic energy into pretty much any object, most often into a deck of cards. From there, Tatum got the attention of producers. One in particular, Lauren Shuler Donner, the same woman that has produced six X-men related films.
Tatum told MTV about his meeting that he had with Donner,
“I met with Lauren Shuler Donner. And I would love it. Gambit is really the only X-Man I’ve ever loved. I mean I’ve loved them all, they’re all great, but I guess from being down south – my dad’s from Louisiana, I’m from Mississippi, Alabama, Florida – I don’t know. I just related to him. He’s just kind of suave… He’s the most un X-men, X-Man that’s ever been in X-Men. Other than maybe Wolverine, who’s like the anti-hero. He’s a thief. He’s not even a hero. He’s kind of walking the line of grey…He loves women and drinking and smoking and stuff so he’s just a cool guy who happens to have a moral center….I hope it [comes together]. You never know it’s a weird industry. If the stars align, I would die to play it. I’m already working on the accent. It’s crappy at the moment.”
Seeing that they have already met about the film, & Donner has expressed her interest in doing a stand alone Gambit film, this could mean that the blueprint for the film is starting to take place. The only time we got to see Gambit in an X-men film, was in “Wolverine: Origins” which wasn’t a totally great adaptation of the hero & not such a great movie for that matter.
Sources: MTV, Wikipedia, IMDb