Channing Tatum set to play Marvel hero Gambit in 2016

The last time Marvel fans saw Gambit was in X-Men Origins but Fox Studios recently announced that Channing Tatum will be taking on the role of the expert gambler mutant.

X-Men producer, Lauren Shuler Donner, confirmed back in May 2014 that Tatum will be playing the role of Gambit. She tells E!, "Well, you know, he's a rogue-Channing-he's a rascal, just like Remy LeBeau [Gambit's real name]. And he can handle the action-we all know that! And he's got a really good heart. He'll be great for Gambit. And he's a Southerner, too! He's not from New Orleans, but he is a Southerner and he understands that world."

The 34-year-old actor and 22 Jump Street star happily announced the release date on his Twitter with the tweet, "How do you say October 7, 2016 in Cajun?" ABC News quotes.

In an interview last year, Tatum shared on how he wants to portray Gambit.

"Gambit was always like the woman-loving, cigarette-smoking, drinking guy. He was the punk rock of all the superheroes. He's a thief. He kind of rode the line. We're obviously going to go to the saving-the-world superhero movies eventually, but maybe not for the first one. We kind of want to introduce this character in a very different way," Christian Times quotes.

However, it is still unsure if Joshua Zetumer, the one responsible for the recent adaptation of RoboCop, will be hauled in to work for the highly anticipated movie.

Gambit was previously portrayed by Taylor Kitsch in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He was first introduced into the Marvel world in the 1990's at Uncanny X-Men #266, written by Christ Claremont and drawn by Marc Silvestri and is highly known for his ability to make inanimate objects explode.

The movie is set to premiere five months after X-Men Apocalypse in 2016.