Here’s Why Channing Tatum Was Barely in ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’

Let’s assume you’ve seen Kingsman: The Golden Circle. (Let’s assume if not this is your SPOILER warning for the film.) You’re probably wondering why Channing Tatum, who was featured so prominently in the movie’s marketing campaign, has such a small part in the final movie. A supporting role, we could have expected; you knew The Golden Circle was always going to be about Taron Egerton’s Eggsy and his battle with Julianne Moore’s Poppy. But it sure seemed like Tatum’s character, a rowdy American spy named Tequila, should have gotten more screentime. Instead, after one big fight scene, he falls into a drug-induced coma, and spends the rest of the movie pretty much sleeping.

What gives? Egerton told The Hollywood Reporter that Tatum’s part was originally much bigger, but...

There was a shift of sorts. There was some changing because of Channing's schedule. The thing is that the script is constantly in flux.

This also apparently explains why trailers really played up Tatum and his use of a high-tech lasso; in the finished film, it’s Pedro Pascal’s Whiskey who winds up using the laser lasso (which is very cool, I might add), and who generally has a much bigger part than Tatum. After C-Tates disappears from the movie, Pascal essentially becomes the Statesman representative in the story until the very end. I don’t know if they simply gave Tatum’s scenes to Pascal, but that thought did cross my mind at a certain point watching the film.

The upside, according to Egerton, is that if Kingsman gets a third film, we could definitely see more of Statesman’s Tequila in that one. (The Golden Circle ends with a cliffhanger teasing that very possibility.) At least until Chan-chan Tay-tay’s schedule changes again, and he’s trimmed out of that movie too.