Channing Tatum's Gambit Movie Would've Featured Get Out's Lil Rel Howery

By Lauren Rouse Updated:
Lil Rel Howery, Gambit, Channing Tatum

Now that Disney has officially acquired Fox Studios, a whole new world of opportunities has opened up. In particular, the rights to the X-Men characters and the MCU are under one roof. It's unknown how exactly the MCU will introduce these characters but Kevin Feige has already made it clear he has plans for the mutants .

What will happen to Fox's X-Men series and characters is another unknown. There were plenty of X-Men projects under Fox that never made it to cinemas, such as Channing Tatum's Gambit film. Gambit's only live-action appearance was in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine , where he was played by Taylor Kitsch, but plans for a solo flick starring the character have been kicked around for years.

Channing Tatum has been publicly attached to Gambit since 2014, but the project was held up by director changes and other issues during development. Five years later, when Disney took over the Fox slate, Gambit was officially canceled.

THE GAMBIT CAST WOULD'VE INCLUDED LIL REY HOWERY

Now that Gambit has been completely scrapped, Get Out star Lil Rey Howery has revealed what could've been. Speaking about his upcoming film Bad Trip to The Illuminerdi , Howery was asked whether he would like to join the MCU, to which he revealed he was attached to a superhero project at one stage:

"So there was a movie that I was attached to with Channing Tatum that we were going to do and whatever happened happened, it was in that world so…I was like ‘Damn man.’"

When asked if the film was Gambit , Howery responded: "Yeah… I ain’t never told anybody that. Yeah it was Gambit."

WHAT GAMBIT COULD'VE BEEN

Little has been revealed about Gambit since its cancelation , the only constant was that Channing Tatum would play the lead role. The film was clearly close to shooting more than once if other actors, such as Howery, had joined the cast.

It's anyone's guess as to which character Howery would've played, but he's proven himself an actor of many talents given his roles in projects such as Get Out, Insecure and Judas and the Black Messiah . Early iterations of Gambit had it pinned as a comedic heist film, so Howery would've fit right in as one of the supporting characters.

It looks pretty unlikely that Fox's version of Gambit will ever see the light of day, but now that Disney has control over the character it's still possible audiences will see Gambit in a future project.

- About The Author: Lauren Rouse
Lauren Rouse has been a writer at The Direct since the site launched in 2020. She has a huge passion for everything pop culture and currently writes news articles for the Marvel, Star Wars, DC and video game branches.