Channing Tatum Is Confirmed To Play Fan Favorite Mutant; Gambit

As of Monday night X-Men fans are finding themselves as divided as Magneto and Professor X because actor Channing Tatum has confirmed his role as the mutant Gambit in an upcoming solo film in the X-Men franchise. The ’22 Jump Street’ actor took to his Twitter last night asking “How do you say October 7, 2016 in Cajun?”

Fans of the X-Men comics immediately recognized this as a cheeky reference to Gambit’s comic book nickname “The Ragin’ Cajun.” Moviegoers familiar with the X-Men movies but not the comics are in for a delightful surprise as Gambit is a refreshing change of pace from the franchises’ usual character’s.

Most people aren’t familiar with Gambit as a character so Fox has a lot of opportunities to make his first impression on audiences a good one, unlike rebooted characters like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and The Hulk of mediocre movies’ past.The wild success of Marvel Studios’ headliners such as Captain America and Iron Man translating to huge box office pulls from their more obscure heroes like The Guardians of the Galaxy is a great example of an audience not necessarily being familiar with a character going to see a movie based on franchise reputation alone. X-Fans have been clamoring for a Gambit movie for years now and it seems that Fox has become confident enough to take a chance on the relatively obscure mutant–finally straying from the warm safety blanket of Wolverine.

Gambit getting his own movie also opens the door for other fan favorite mutants to appear in the film, such as Gambit’s longtime girlfriend Rogue. For those who don’t know the first thing about the mutant Tatum is going to play. Remy LeBeau aka Gambit is a Cajun French mutant from New Orleans who has the ability to convert the potential energy stored in an object into kinetic energy and by extension being able to control that object.

This is usually demonstrated by his card throwing in which the cards explode from being “charged” by the sudden change from potential to kinetic energy. Along with being a master thief before officially joining the X-Men, Gambit is known for his blood red eyes and tendency to slip between English and Cajun French when he speaks.