While every comic book character under the sun, including Morbius, The Living Vampire, Multiple Man and, even the Fantastic Grilled Cheese Man (one of those is made up), are all off getting their own movies, the one who can’t seem to get his going is Gambit. With Channing Tatum on board and in development hell for years, directors have come and gone while being so close to starting production, and yet so far. One of those directors, Rupert Wyatt, opened up about why he had to step away after yet another production hiccup and, hint, it has something to do with 2015's FANTASTIC FOUR tanking.
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Wyatt was speaking with Comics Beat recently to promote his new movie CAPTIVE STATE when he was asked about GAMBIT and how much he worked on it before leaving. According to Wyatt, they were about 10 weeks away from starting production when the bombing of another Fox superhero flick, FANTASTIC FOUR, caused the studio to rethink strategy, which meant hindering the production of GAMBIT in ways Wyatt couldn’t work with.
“I was very close with Channing Tatum and his producing partner Reid Carolin, and I was on the script with him and Josh Zetumer as a writer. We were close, I believe 10 weeks away. It simply came down to budget. There was not enough. You know all too well about the politics of the business. Fantastic Four had been released by Fox a month before and had not gone well for them, so our budget was slashed quite considerably. The inevitable, from my perspective was, ‘Well then we need to rewrite the script to tailor to our budget,’ but we were too close to a start date for Fox to really want to go there, so unfortunately, it just didn’t work out.”
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Even though he’s not attached, Wyatt still appreciates the movie they were all going to make and hopes that with Disney money behind the character now with their Fox purchase the movie can finally be made.
“All I know is Channing had a really, really wonderful idea for what that film could and should be. I know he and Reid are still plugging away at it, so I hope in the new Disney era, that then they get to make it.”
In development hell for what seems like all movie history, the movie has also cycled through directors Doug Liman (EDGE OF TOMORROW) and Gore Verbinski (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN), but is now director-less. Tatum has also entertained the notion of directing himself, but odds of that are slim should it get a big budget from a major studio. While production starts have been teased for as soon as last month, with the most recent release date set for March 2020, everything is still on hold as the Disney/Fox merger near finalizing.
This movie has been in the mix for so long it seems weird to even think about it being made, because if it is what else would we have to talk about? I do think chances are high Disney will do something with the character, especially with an A-list star like Tatum being so passionate about it, much like Ryan Reynolds with Deadpool – and we all know how that turned out. I would’ve loved to have seen Wyatt’s take on the movie, but sadly a budget is one battle with a studio you’re not likely to win, so I understand why it never came together. Still, it begs the question of how much they needed to make it work. How much does it take to make CGI playing cards fly through the air?
Fox's latest X-Men movies, X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX, hits theaters June 7.