During Fox’s two decades in charge of the X-Men franchise, the studio were never shy about producing sequels, remakes, reboots and spinoffs in order to extend the brand’s shelf life, and while the overall quality of their comic book movies was very hit-or-miss, giving Wolverine and Deadpool their own standalone series outside of the main timeline earned them almost $3 billion at the box office to top up the earnings made by Charles Xavier’s team.
However, one spinoff that never managed to escape years stuck in development hell was Gambit, which had Channing Tatum set to star in the lead role and produce for over five years before it was eventually canceled when Disney completed their takeover of Fox. At various points, Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ Rupert Wyatt, Edge of Tomorrow’s Doug Liman and Pirates of the Caribbean’s Gore Verbinski were attached to direct, but all of them ultimately ended up walking away from the project.
We know, though, that Marvel Studios is looking to reboot Gambit as part of their X-Men lineup, and now we’ve heard that not only are the studio toying with the idea of making their own solo movie for the fan favorite character, but it might even end up being R-rated. At least, that’s according to sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us Ryan Reynolds had a secret cameo in Hobbs & Shaw and Disney were developing live-action remakes of Robin Hood and Bambi, all of which were correct.
From what we understand, Marvel are still undecided about whether to venture into R-rated territory for Deadpool 3, even though Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted they weren’t totally against the idea. But if they do decide to make the first adult-orientated installment in the MCU and it does similar box office numbers to their PG-13 output, then they’ll be much more open to the idea and might see Gambit as the ideal next candidate. Meaning it could end up with an R-rating as well.
That’d certainly make sense, too, as if Gambit were to be an origin story, then realistically they could produce it for a fraction of what their superhero blockbusters usually cost, while also giving them the opportunity to experiment with the idea of R-rated solo movies for characters that some audiences might not be too familiar with. We won’t be seeing the MCU’s X-Men for a while, of course, but it’ll be interesting nonetheless to see what they’ve got in store for them.
