‘It was a really cool idea,’ Lizzy Caplan says of abandoned Marvel movie
Channing Tatum’s Gambit co-star Lizzy Caplan is sharing plot details on the comic book movie that was set to go into production, but was dropped just weeks before filming began.
Tatum was tapped to play the X-Men hero, who can turn a deck of cards into a weapon, in his own spinoff film. But the title was axed after Disney acquired Fox, which owned the movie rights to certain Marvel characters.
Caplan says that the film was “down the road” and they were “gonna shoot it.”
“I think there was a start date. I had had meetings with Channing … we had a director, then we didn’t, but I had multiple meetings with Channing and the other producers,” she said. “They wanted to do, like, a ’30s kind of screwball romantic comedy set in that world, which would have been really fun.”
But Caplan wasn’t broken up that it was scrubbed.
“I had a lot of stress about doing that kind of movie even then,” she says. “So now I’m pretty OK not doing one of those movies.”
Once his cameo alongside Wesley Snipes’ Blade, Jennifer Garner’s Electra and Chris Evans’ Human Torch (all remnants from the Fox era) became public last summer, Tatum took to social media to gush about getting a chance to return to the role.
After his scene-stealing cameo left fans clamouring for more, Tatum said whether the Cajun superhero reappears in a future Marvel movie is up to studio boss Kevin Feige.
“I shut off my Marvel machine. I haven’t been able to see any of the movies. I loved that character. It was just too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him,” he said at the time.
“I honestly don’t know what goes on behind closed doors in the bookkeeping sessions at Marvel, but I do know that they’re obsessed with him in that role,” Reynolds said on EW‘s Awardist podcast last summer. “It’s kind of like the same situation I went through. Once you show that it works well, that’s really what they need. Sometimes they just need to see it in action.”
The abandoned Gambit movie wasn’t the only film Tatum has been left wondering what-if about. Last year, the actor opened up on a cancelled crossover between 21 Jump Street (which he starred in alongside Jonah Hill) and Will Smith’s Men In Black franchise.
Perhaps buoyed by his return as Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine, Tatum made another plea for a 23 Jump Street.
“You know what, I’m going to put some good juju out there and I’m going to say I would love to see 23 Jump Street,” he said. “I would love to do it with Jonah, and Jonah I know wants to do it. We would love to just get to go play again.”