Marvel Boss Calls Channing Tatum's Gambit a Standout in Avengers: Doomsday
Channing Tatum is back as Gambit, and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige says the character stands out in Avengers: Doomsday. Feige made the comments to Empire magazine, and Variety reported them on 13 November 2026.
Gambit first appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the shared run of films that Marvel Studios makes for Disney, in Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024. Feige said Tatum brings the same charm to the new film. He added that Gambit is not there purely for laughs and is a fully rounded character.
Tatum has his own view of the accent. He said he will not go full Cajun with it, the Louisiana style of speech the character's New Orleans background suggests. That is a choice many fans of the character will notice.
Tatum also described the tone that directors Anthony and Joe Russo are aiming for. According to Tatum, the brothers want the film to be funny without tipping into the style of Deadpool, and they want to keep the drama tight. The brothers have steered the franchise's biggest team-ups before, and Tatum's account suggests they are holding that balance on this one.
The road back was not short. Tatum spent years trying to get a standalone Gambit film made at 20th Century Fox, the studio that held the rights to the X-Men characters before Disney bought the company. Those attempts did not succeed. The character's return inside the bigger Marvel films is a different route to the screen.
Making the film was not without cost for Tatum. He suffered an injury on set that needed pain medication and intensive physical therapy. As a result, he was kept out of some of the action scenes. His stunt double did the heavy physical work while Tatum filmed the close-up shots that needed his face.
Trailers already show Gambit in a fight with Simu Liu's Shang-Chi, the martial-arts hero Liu plays. The clip gives a sense of how the two characters meet on screen, although the trailers do not show the full story around that clash.
Avengers: Doomsday is set for release by Disney and Marvel Studios on 18 December 2026. That puts the film in the busy holiday period, when studios often push their biggest releases into cinemas. Until then, the cast's comments and trailer footage are the main ways audiences can judge how Gambit fits into the story.
