‘A lo ladies and gents!

Today, I’ve decided to tap into my inner “Nerd Girl” and get all in my feelings about some news I heard earlier this week. As some of you should know, FOX is releasing X-MEN: Days of Future Past next month and it’s said that this may open the gateway for a sequel, X-MEN: Apocalypse. Now I’m all for an X-Men movie. I already watched five out of six of them (I still haven’t watched the Wolverine sequel even though people say it’s better than the first Wolvy movie), but here’s where things start to leave a bad taste in my mouth: Channing Tatum recently revealed (at the 2014 MTV Movie Awards) that he spoke with one of the X-Men producers about the role of Gambit — the Cajun-accented, card-tossing, stick-wielding, charming Southern boy who joins the team and ultimately becomes the love interest for power-draining, Rogue.

Take a minute to digest that this:                                        Wants to play this:

OK. So, some of you out there are probably all: “we don’t see the problem” or “um, Channing is so hot?” right? Fine. I give you that. Channing is appealing to the eye, but guess what? Gambit’s not only an athletic pretty boy. He’s also a charmer. And you normally have to TALK to charm a person… so that means Gambit will have to SPEAK and the person playing him will in turn have to ACT. Do you see where I’m going with this now? Not yet? OK, let me spell it out for you:

CHANNING CAN’T ACT THIS ROLE.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of roles that Channing can do. Just not this one. For one, he’d have to undergo serious training to nail that Cajun accent, which is pretty damn pivotal to Gambit’s character. Two, he’d need to learn how to obtain that Tom Hiddleston level of “suave” that is almost natural in order to fill Gambit’s shoes.  And three, after the bland Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) that we first met in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we need a MASSIVE upgrade to make things right in the world.

So, who would I choose?

If I had my way, I’d probably go with Norman Reedus of Walking Dead. Norman’s “Daryl Dixon” already has  that bad ass, I’ve-done-shady-things-but-I’m-a-good-guy-at-heart thing going for him, PLUS he’s already got a Southern accent down, so getting it Cajun-fried wouldn’t be too much to do. He’s pretty athletic and lots of women find him sexy.

There’s also the possibility of casting an unknown who is looking for the right character to shoot them to film stardom. If the Batman vs. Superman movie can go ahead and get a moderately well-known actress to play le EPIC Wonder Woman, an unknown with great acting skills can totally do Gambit.

The sucky part about all of this is that it almost seems like Channing’s got this one in the bag. His endless connections to the role (speaking with the producer about it, the producer thinking of him for the role when they didn’t write the character in yet, yada yada yada) makes this a sweet deal too good to pass up, so soon enough we’ll see him Channing all over Gambit’s Tatum.

I’m not one to really bash and actor and like I said, Channing is good for the roles that he’s good for. But this one just ain’t it. Then again, who knows he just might not get the role, or if he does, he might make me change my mind about him.

Or…

maybe not.

I’m done ranting for the night, but let me know how you feel about it — do you want to see Channing or do you think someone’s better? Who would you pick to be Gambit? Tell me all about it in the comments or on le Twitter!

x Nerd Girl Out x