With so much secrecy surrounding every Marvel Studios projects - the upcoming Avengers movies, in particular - it can obviously be difficult for the cast to discuss their roles or story details to any significant degree, but Channing Tatum has managed to circumvent this problem by turning himself into a one-man Doomsday hype machine.
The actor, who will return as Gambit after making his MCU debut in Deadpool and Wolverine, has been expressing his excitement for the massive event film in interviews over the past few weeks, and has now told Deadline that he believes Doomsday could end up being the biggest movie of the decade.
"Look, everyone in the world is going to see this movie. It's hard to say this because, I mean, you hear these things and go, 'Of course'. But they've topped themselves every time. This will be the biggest movie of next year and maybe even the next 10 years."
"The scope of it, what they're trying to do… what the Russos have cooked up – when I read it, I was just like, 'How are they going to do this?'. It was an Everest of a mountain to climb. I am still in awe," Tatum added. "I do so much action in this movie, but that was just a small part."
It remains to be seen how Remy Lebeau will be utilized in Doomsday (we assume he will be part of the team with the OG X-Men characters), but is there a chance he will also appear in Ryan Reynolds' mysterious mutant team-up movie?
Following a recent rumor from Daniel Richtman, MTTSH hinted that this project will indeed be a new X-Force movie.
During a previous interview with Variety, Tatum said that studio executives “really had to wrap their mind around the accent and how people are going to understand him.”
“I’m not gonna go full Cajun,” he added. “[Directors Anthony and Joe Russo] want things to be funny, but they don’t want to go full Deadpool. They want to keep the drama and keep it tight. When Gambit gets serious — when he drops the Mardi Gras mask — things do matter.”
Spoilers follow.
Tatum also revealed that he has a "big fight" scene with Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom that was intense enough to cause an injury.
"Tatum was sidelined, sitting in for close-ups and allowing his double to take on the heavy stuff. Today, he says, he’s taken the day off his pain meds 'so I wouldn’t be falling asleep on you and drooling. My body doesn’t do well with codeine — and those painkillers the U.K. docs gave me were strong.'”
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars were recently hit with significant delays, with Doomsday now set to arrive in theaters on December 18, 2026, and Secret Wars positioned for December 17, 2027.
Both movies will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Being able to create stories and explore characters within the Marvel Universe fulfilled a life-long dream of ours, and we discovered a powerful connection with audiences in each film that we made. We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with Kevin, Lou and the entire Marvel team to bring this epic adventure in storytelling to new and surprising places for both the fans and ourselves”, said The Russos in a statement after the SDCC panel.
You can check out the full (for now) Doomsday cast list below.
• Paul Rudd as Ant-Man
• Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
• Tom Hiddleston as Loki
• Lewis Pullman as Sentry
• Florence Pugh as Yelena
• Danny Ramirez as Falcon
• Ian McKellen as Magneto
• Sebastian Stan as Bucky
• Winston Duke as M’Baku
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Kelsey Grammer as Beast
• James Marsden as Cyclops
• Channing Tatum as Gambit
• Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm
• Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
• Patrick Stewart as Professor X
• Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler
• Letitia Wright as Black Panther
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards
• Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm
• David Harbour as Red Guardian
• Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America