After having spearheaded the upcoming Gambit movie for years it came as quite a surprise when Channing Tatum last week suddenly wasn’t a lock for the role any longer. However, as expected at the time, Tatum seems to have only entertained the idea of dropping out of the project as a negotiation tactic now that the movie is close to being a sure-fire thing. Over the weekend, the actor has now come to an agreement with 20th Century Fox and officially signed on to star in the X-Men spin-off. Hit the jump to read the full story.

According to The Hollywood Reporter there never really was any danger of Tatum leaving Gambit, which he has been heavily invested in for years, even going to such lengths as appearing at Comic-Con to promote the project before a finalized deal was in place. Instead, the negotiations more had to do with Tatum’s back-end deal as well as the potential future involvement of Gambit in the overall X-Men movie universe.

With Hugh Jackman retiring as Wolverine that last part is quite significant, since Fox is looking for a new character to be the anchor of the franchise like Wolverine has been up until now in every movie but X-Men: First Class. That anchor could very well end up being Gambit who would both appear in the team-focused movies as well as continue with his own solo outings.

Gambit is set to be directed by Rise of the Planet of the Apes helmer Rupert Wyatt from a script by Josh Zetumer, who previously wrote the 2014 reboot of RoboCop. So far Tatum is the only one to have been cast in the movie which will hit theaters October 7th, 2016. Are you looking forward to Gambit and do you think he should take on a bigger role in the X-Men Cinematic Universe?