To call Remy LeBeau’s path to the silver screen meandering may be something of an understatement, but now that Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman has been instated in the film’s hot seat – filling the void left by Rupert Wyatt – Gambit is finally beginning to pick up a sense of momentum.
Keen to keep that momentum trucking along, Fox producer Simon Kinberg has been speaking to Collider about the tone and general set-up of the X-Men spinoff. When compared to Tim Miller’s Deadpool film, Kinberg noted that the Channing Tatum-fronted actioner will have “its own different flavor” along with a few hints about what we can expect from the finished feature.
When viewed against the overarching X-Men universe, the producer began by stating that Doug Liman’s mutant standalone piece will be angled as a “sexy” heist thriller.
“I mean Deadpool obviously has a very different, almost antithetical tone to the mainline X-Men movies. The X-Men movies are dramatic and almost operatic, whereas Deadpool is irreverent and hysterical and sort of a dirty R-rated comedy in many ways. And Gambit will have its own different flavor and tone to it, will be more of like a heist movie and a sexy thriller in a way.”
Considering that the interview took place before news broke of Liman’s appointment, Kinberg makes mention of a then-mysterious director that was on the verge of signing a deal. But beyond that, there’s word of production getting underway in spring of 2016, just as soon as that script is nailed down once and for all.
“We have a director in and I don’t know if I’m allowed to say who it is yet because his deal isn’t done, but it’s somebody we’re excited about, and somebody I adore, and hopefully we can make an announcement soon about that. But we’ve been spending a lot of time together—Channing, [Reid Carolin, Tatum’s producing partner], [screenwriter Joshua Zetumer], the director, and myself—just working on the script, and we hope to start shooting next spring.”
For all of the ambition behind Fox’s Gambit offshoot, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that Doug Liman’s feature film will make its tentative October 7, 2016 release window. So long as the film is moving in the right direction, though, we’ll happily welcome a brief delay to proceedings.
