Channing Tatum says he is too "traumatized" to watch any kind of Marvel movie anymore after his dreams of playing a superhero were crushed.
The Magic Mike star, 41, was set to play X-Men character Gambit in his own movie in 2016, but after production delays and the Disney/Fox merger, the movie was scrapped.
Since 2014 Tatum and his producing partner Reid Carolin tried to get the movie off the ground at Fox, which made all the X-Men movies. But when Disney bought the studio in 2019 the project was canned.
"The studio really didn't want us to direct it," Tatum told Variety. "They wanted anybody but us, essentially, because we had never directed anything."
When Disney merged with Fox in 2019, they decided to redesign the X-Men franchise "from the ground up," Tatum explained.
"We were right on the one-yard line. We had cast the film. We’d opened up a production office. We were on our way to shoot in New Orleans," he said.
"Once 'Gambit' went away, I was so traumatized," he said. "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, noting that Gambit was the "coolest."
Tatum apparently was especially attracted to the character’s "cool” factor, zeroing in on his personality and fashion sense.
"They would call him ‘flamboyant’ in his description," he said. "I wouldn’t — he was just the coolest person. He could pull anything off.
"Most superheroes, their outfits are utilitarian. Batman's got his belt. Gambit's like, 'No, this s**t's just fly, bro! This s**t walked down the Paris runway last year.' He's just wearing the stuff that's so dope because he loves fashion," he added.
Although the character may no longer be ready for his close-up, Tatum isn’t giving up hope to eventually play the mutant at some point onscreen.
"I would love to play Gambit,” the father of one revealed, adding that he and Carolin may have overstepped their bounds a bit the first time around.
"I don’t think we should direct it. I think that was hubris on our part. I wish they would reconsider because it’s a pretty great project," he said, adding: "Maybe someday."