5 Years Lost: Marvel’s Gambit Fails to Find a Buyer and Channing Tatum Still Grieving

4- When was this supposed to come out?

A difficult question because the film has been rescheduled countless times. Of course, it all started on May 14, 2014, when Twentieth Century Fox announced that the mutant character Gambit, played by Channing Tatum, would appear in X-Men: Apocalypse and then his own solo film. .

At the time, the film was announced for October 7, 2016, a few months after Deadpool (February 17) and X-Men: Apocalypse (May 18). But everything will not be so easy.

3 – What was written?

Remy LeBeau, known as Gambit, is a mutant who can use hypnotic powers and manipulate kinetic energy. In the comics, he’s a former thief-turned-mercenary, and we’ve already seen him played by Taylor Kitsch in the underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Producer Simon Kinberg then testified about the film’s aspirations and intentions, comparing them to the rest of the Marvel-Fox universe: “The X-Men movies are dramatic and almost operatic, and ‘Deadpool’ is irreverent and hysterical, it’s kind of a trash comedy. Gambit will have its own flavor, its own tone. It will be more of a heist movie and a kind of sex thriller. “

As for Tatum, he confides after years : “We wanted to make a superhero movie, but as a romantic comedy. The theme was to say that the only thing harder than saving the world is making a relationship work (…) I don’t know “It’s lavish, but it’s a gambit. He was just the coolest person.”

2- Who was he with?

Channing Tatum learns to play cards and hold hands with his magician friend and learns a Cajun accent to best fit the character. Léa Seydoux has been chosen to lend her qualities to Bella Donna Boudreau, a superhero with psychic powers and the ability to blast plasma and the head of the Assassin’s Guild and Remy LeBeau’s first love.

As time goes on, Léa Seydoux will be sidelined in favor of Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex), the daughter of the leader of the Assassin’s Guild and the first love of Remi LeBeau.

On the villain side, rumors point to James Bond Daniel Craig, with whom Tatum cast Logan Lucky to portray the supervillain Mr. Villain, opposite Candra the Benefactor, the immortal also known as the “Red Death” and the benefactor of the Thieves and Assassins Guild. .

1- Why didn’t it work?

It wasn’t until 2014-2015 that the names of JC Chandor, Bennett Miller, Gareth Evans and Darren Aronofsky were floated, but declined and Rupert Wyatt (Planet of the Apes: Origins) was officially announced. In mid-2015, Channing Tatum announced that he would not be in X-Men: Apocalypse after all, and that we would discover Gambit in his solo film. That’s when he posed with all the members of the Marvel mutant universe:

In mid-September, Rupert White left the project, replaced by Doug Liman, who in turn left. It’s November 2015 and the movie is completely missing its release date! A few months later, Simon Kinberg, head of the Marvel Universe at Fox, said:

“I hope Gambit doesn’t take 10 years, but he needs a little bit of refinement to find his exact tone and voice. Like Deadpool, he has his own voice in his comics, and we want to bring that to the screen. I think we’re close to having a story worthy of the character.” .”

In October 2017, while the screenwriters reached a compromise without a suitable tone, Gore Verbinski joined the project as director, and Gambit was scheduled for release on February 14, 2019. In December, Disney Studios officially bought Twentieth Century Fox and cleaned house.

As a result, The New Mutants, another X-Men movie, was pushed back to 2020, and Gambit, which wasn’t that far ahead, was abandoned on May 8, 2019, almost 5 years after it was announced. Let’s leave the final word to Channing Tatum, who admitted in 2022:

“When Gambit dropped, I was so traumatized that I just turned off my Marvel machine. I couldn’t watch any more movies (…). It was so sad. It was like losing a friend because I was ready. To play…”