A few years ago, it was announced that Gambit would be receiving a live-action movie. We then even got a casting to go along with the announcement of the movie, Channing Tatum would be the card-wielding Mutant.
Now over a five-year period the development of the movie changed, quite a lot of times with only one consistent thing in it’s development, Channing Tatum as Gambit.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt signed on to direct Gambit, then left four months later. The next filmmaker to come on board officially was The Bourne Identity‘s Doug Liman, beating out candidates like Joe Cornish, Shane Black, and F. Gary Gray.
In January 2016, the film was set to begin production in March for a release in October. Instead, in February, the film was pulled from Fox’s release schedule, and by August, Liman pulled out, citing concerns with the script.
Gore Verbinski, the director of The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl, was the next person tapped to direct, after working with Tatum on Logan Lucky. The filmmaker was set to start filming in late 2017 with an eye toward a 2018 release after Tatum had told fans that the script had been completely rewritten. Before it could get produced, though, Verbinski left the project. Nobody else was able to get the stalled production moving again before Disney purchased Fox and officially canceled Gambit.
Tatum’s version of Gambit would have been rated R. “We wanted to make a romantic comedy superhero movie, The thesis was the only thing harder than saving the world is making a relationship work.”
Tatum still defends the character as if he were a real person. “They would call him ‘flamboyant’ in his description,” Tatum says. “I wouldn’t — he was just the coolest person. He could pull anything off. Most superheroes, their outfits are utilitarian. Batman’s got his belt. Gambit’s like, ‘No, this shit’s just fly, bro! This shit walked down the Paris runway last year.’ He’s just wearing the stuff that’s so dope because he loves fashion.”
Ultimately, Gambit was canceled which deeply affected Tatum, “once Gambit went away, I was so traumatized. I shut off my Marvel machine. I haven’t been able to see any of the movies. I loved the character. It was too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him.”
Tatum says he’d still portray the mutant if given the chance: “Uh, yeah, I would love to play Gambit. I don’t think we should direct it. I think that was hubris on our part.”
I would love nothing more than to see Tatum don the iconic character, his passion alone proves that he is more than willing to still portray the character even after years of setbacks.
Would you like to see Gambit live-action?
