Deadpool and Avengers: Doomsday star Channing Tatum has said he’s still keen to make his previously-planned Gambit solo movie, though believes Marvel and Disney would never film its planned superhero sex scenes today.
Speaking to Variety, Tatum said there was “a world where Gambit could finally get his due” after the positive reaction to his character’s return in the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine, a love letter to his 20th Century Fox-era origins.
However, Tatum said he believes Disney would still require changes to the Gambit movie he still had in mind, which he describes as “an R-rated romantic comedy” featuring “mutants having sex.”
“If we’d made our Fox version, that script would’ve never gotten made – ever,” Tatum said. “It was an R-rated romantic comedy. And when I say R-rated, I mean we went for it. We made Gambit the kind of character who could only exist in a movie with Deadpool. We had mutants having sex! It was wild.
“That’s something Marvel and Disney would never do,” he continued, “You don’t always know what Disney will be, but you definitely know what it’s not going to be. It’s not gonna be horror. It’s not gonna be sex. But I think Marvel needs that kind of tonal diversity; something to balance the other side. Gambit’s a great opportunity for that.”
While not R-rated, Marvel did show Gemma Chan’s Sersi and Richard Maddon’s Ikaris having sex in The Eternals. As for horror, many fans consider Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to feature plenty of horror elements — not least the scenes where Benedict Cumberbatch’s sorcerer is pursued by Elizabeth Olsen’s bloodied Scarlet Witch in the latter half of the movie.
While Tatum may not yet have got his Gambit on solo (or otherwise), the actor is primed to return in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, which picks up his character after the events of Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s unknown exactly what Gambit will be up to, exactly, though he will appear alongside a host of other actors from the Fox era of Marvel movies, including most of the main X-Men.
Speaking about his role in the film last month, Tatum teased a big X-Men versus Doctor Doom showdown, and also addressed how the movie will handle his character’s accent — which was played for laughs in Deadpool & Wolverine.
“[Marvel] really had to wrap their mind around the accent and how people are going to understand him,” Tatum said. “I’m not gonna go full Cajun. [They] want things to be funny, but they don’t want to go full Deadpool. They want to keep the drama and keep it tight. When Gambit gets serious — when he drops the Mardi Gras mask — things do matter.”
And earlier this month, Tatum said Avengers: Doomsday will manage to beat the surprises seen in past MCU films, and top the shock value of Wesley Snipes’ Blade appearing in Deadpool & Wolverine by a factor of 50.
Avengers: Doomsday is currently set to launch in theaters on December 18, 2026. Should Gambit survive, here’s hoping we see the full Cajun again some day.
Image credit: Earl Gibson III/Penske Media via Getty Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
