We Enjoyed Channing Tatum's Gambit As Much As Everyone, But Marvel Needs To Avoid Making A Big Mistake With The Character Moving Forward

The latest Marvel Studios movie "Deadpool and Wolverine" was packed with inside jokes and Easter eggs that reference moments from the proper MCU, as well as the period in time when Marvel was making movies to be distributed by 20th Century Fox. There’s a moment in the movie where Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) literally speaks into the camera and tells Fox that he’s leaving to go to Disneyland, then he headbutts the imaginary lens. It’s all very meta. Not as meta, though, as the inclusion of "Magic Mike" and "21 Jump Street" star Channing Tatum finally playing the card-throwing mutant Gambit, though. And unless you read superhero movie news over the years, you might not even understand the joke that Tatum was cast as Gambit years ago and promised a movie that just never materialized.

In the wake of "Deadpool and Wolverine" and the movie’s enormous financial success, there has been talk about what to do with these characters now that they have been “rescued” from the trash bin of Fox/Marvel purgatory. Ryan Reynolds himself has started the campaign for Marvel Studios to give Wesley Snipes a proper Blade sendoff – akin to Hugh Jackman’s "Logan" movie – instead of the Mahershala Ali-led movie that keeps running into production snafus.