Channing Tatum is quite honest about his feelings toward the G.I. Joe franchise, where he was part of not only one film but two, being killed off at the beginning of the sequel, something that he apparently asked for.

During an interview with Vanity Fair, the actor was connected to a lie detector and confessed he hated the franchise and rejected the part many times. He also stated that before going into the set for the second installment, he begged for his character to be killed off:

“The first one I passed on seven times, but they had an option on me and I had to do the movie. So the second one I obviously just didn't want to do that either. The script wasn't good, and I didn't want to do something that I'd been a fan of since I was a kid, that I watched every morning and I didn't want to do something that was bad and I didn't know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe.”

The actor had a deal with Paramount Pictures at the time, after his participation in Coach Carter (2005), that required him to do three movies with them, and that’s why he couldn’t say no to G.I. Joe. In the interview, Tatum also reveals he wanted to plate Snake Eyes, but the studio didn’t go with it. A few years later, Henry Golding got the chance to play that same character in a spin-off that was a huge failure for the franchise.

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Snake Eyes wasn't the only character Tatum asked to play but didn’t get the chance to. A few years ago, before Disney acquired 20th Century Studios, the actor was set to become Gambit for the X-Men franchise as one of the many spin-offs that would tell the origin story of the mutants.

Unfortunately, the movie seemed haunted and was constantly delayed, even when Channing insisted on making it. Now that the studio and the rights for the character belong to Marvel Studios, it seems that the chances to get the film made are even more distant, as the actor explained:

“It got swallowed up into Disney by way of Marvel when they bought Fox, and ultimately I just think that the tone of the movie we wanted to make was very far from what they wanted to do—or, you know, maybe they’re waiting to see how they do it with us or without us. We call every once in a while, but we’ve got to spiritually, emotionally, kind of mentally let it go.”