Channing Tatum Promises Avengers: Doomsday Will Melt Your Mind

Marvel is cranking the hype machine, and this time it is Channing Tatum doing the stirring. He is back as Gambit for Avengers: Doomsday and, according to him, we are wildly unprepared for what the Russos have cooked up.

What Tatum is actually teasing

Talking to Entertainment Tonight, Tatum said the script for Avengers: Doomsday had him repeatedly asking how Marvel could even pull it off. He called it the studio raising its own bar yet again, said we are not ready (he really hammered that), and compared the shock factor to the moment Blade shows up in Deadpool & Wolverine — multiplied many times over.

"It is gonna make your brains ooze out of your ears."

Plot details? He would not touch them. But he did confirm he is reprising Gambit after popping up in Deadpool & Wolverine, and his excitement level is... loud.

So what is Avengers: Doomsday shaping up to be?

The Russo brothers are back in the directors chairs, which is a very inside-baseball move that signals Marvel wants another Endgame-level swing. The movie is pulling in a stacked lineup from across the MCU and beyond — yes, other universes are involved — to cap the Multiverse Saga. Big crossover energy, bigger expectations.

Where things stand going into Doomsday

• The Multiverse Saga has had bright spots, but it has not matched the storytelling highs of the Infinity Saga.
• Recent releases like Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps suggest the ship is turning in a better direction.
• That puts a ton of pressure on Avengers: Doomsday and its follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars, to stick the landing.
• Shane Black is on record thinking Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom will save comic book movies. I am not ready to plant that flag. I expect spectacle for days, but I would love to actually feel something again — not just cheer cameos.

Meanwhile: Tatum has a non-superhero curveball coming

Before we get to Doomsday, Tatum is headlining Derek Cianfrance's Roofman, which just premiered at TIFF and hits theaters on October 10. It is based on the true story of Jeffrey Manchester, a former Army Ranger and struggling dad who starts robbing McDonald's by cutting in through the roof, earning the nickname Roofman. After a prison break, he secretly lives inside a Toys "R" Us for six months while plotting his next move. Things get complicated when he falls for Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a divorced mom, and his double life starts to unravel, kicking off a cat-and-mouse spiral as his past closes in.