Ryan Reynolds is hinting that fans may not have seen the last of Channing Tatum’s Gambit after his surprise appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine, Daily Mail reports.
According to the report by Daily Mail, Tatum, 44, had been set to play the Cajun card-throwing superhero in a stand-alone film that was in development for years, but ultimately discarded in 2019.
Five years later, he finally got to play the beloved character in Deadpool & Wolverine, which took in $1.33 billion at the worldwide box office.
Now that the character was well-received and established within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans are curious if they’ll get to see him again.
Deadpool & Wolverine star/co-writer/producer Ryan Reynolds was asked just that in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, and while he doesn’t have any definitive answers, he did stress that Marvel is ‘obsessed’ with Tatum’s Gambit.
‘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,’ Ryan Reynolds said of Gambit.
‘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,’ Reynolds said.
Ryan Reynolds knows Tatum’s plight all too well, since Deadpool was a character he desperately wanted to bring to the screen for years.
He debuted as the ‘Merc With the Mouth’ in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, though fans, critics and Reynolds himself was none too pleased with the final product.
He set out to make a stand-alone Deadpool film, which languished in development for years, until test footage leaked online and was widely beloved by fans.
20th Century Fox ultimately had no choice but to give Deadpool the green light, paving the way for box office history.
2016’s Deadpool became the highest-grossing R-rated movie at the worldwide box office with $782.8 million worldwide from just a $58 million budget.
That paved the way for Deadpool 2 in 2018 ($785.8 million worldwide) and this summer’s Deadpool & Wolverine, with Ryan Reynolds alongside Hugh Jackman.
Reynolds hopes that with the overwhelming fan support and Marvel being ‘obsessed’ with the character leads to his return in the MCU.
‘And Channing is so singular in how he plays that character, but also he’s so beautiful physically, the way he moves and the way he can pick up steps,’ Reynolds said.
While nothing is confirmed yet, there have been reports that Marvel is interested in a fourth Deadpool movie, with both Reynolds and Jackman eyed to return.
Whether or not that leads to the long-awaited Gambit stand-alone film that Tatum has been trying to will into existence for a decade, remains to be seen.