Endgame Makes Avengers: Doomsday Impossible, Says Channing Tatum

Channing Tatum is officially suiting up again as Gambit in Avengers: Doomsday, and yeah, he knows exactly how high the bar is. Marvel is keeping him muzzled on specifics, but he still managed to tease the scale and the pressure without saying anything that would get him tackled by studio security.

Tatum on joining Doomsday (and wondering how the hell you top Endgame)

On The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Tatum talked around the movie the way Marvel folks always do. He admitted that, going in, he was genuinely worried about whether the Russo brothers could outdo their own previous Avengers work. After reading the script, he told them, basically: this is massive—how are you actually going to pull it off?

That said, he also made it clear he was floored by what they have planned. No plot crumbs, no character specifics—just a lot of very careful enthusiasm. Classic Marvel lockdown.

Gambit finally gets to play with the team

Tatum has a history with this character. He was once lined up to headline a solo Gambit movie that never happened, then finally got to throw some kinetically charged cards around in Deadpool & Wolverine. Now he gets to bring Gambit into an Avengers movie, alongside the rest of the X-Men, who are set to appear in Doomsday. That is quite the jump from living room cosplay to MCU mega-crossover.

"I get to play my favorite character... I was the kid who was throwing cards at friends in the living room. I always wanted to be an X-Man, so now to be in the Avengers, it is beyond my wildest dreams."

The Endgame problem: build-up matters

Here is the honest hurdle. Endgame was not just a big movie—it was the payoff to a decade of setup, from Iron Man all the way through the Infinity Saga. That kind of slow-burn investment is a cheat code for cultural dominance.

The current multiversal chapter had a hot start with WandaVision, then spread across a ton of shows and films so fast that the larger story got fuzzy. We are supposedly near the finish line, but the overarching threat has not been fleshed out much on-screen. The word is that Robert Downey Jr will play the main villain this time, which is headline-grabbing, but that character has had essentially zero development so far. The more recent standout Marvel swings have leaned on nostalgia pops over fresh, organic arcs. The Russos may still stick the landing—they have before—but matching Endgame-level frenzy feels like a long shot.

Quick context

• Avengers: Endgame box office: $2.79B worldwide
• IMDb user score: 8.4
• Tomatometer/Audience Score: 94% / 90%
• Runtime: 181 minutes

Avengers: Doomsday opens in theaters on December 18, 2026.