Channing Tatum’s Gambit is one of the most famous unmade superhero movies of the modern era, and spent so long stuck on the shelf that it was canceled by Disney after the Mouse House purchased Fox, having first entered development in late 2013.
During that time, Planet of the Apes‘ Rupert Wyatt, The Bourne Identity‘s Doug Liman and Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Gore Verbinski all signed on to direct but only stuck around for a few months each before departing, with the latter revealing that his brief stint spearheading the project came to an end because the studio were rushing him to get into production as soon as possible, while Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four bombing at the box office saw the budget slashed, causing Verbinski to step away.
Gambit did re-enter development after that, but it never got particularly far along the pre-production process, and now the Cajun mutant is the property of Kevin Feige’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Remy LeBeau remains a hugely popular figure with fans, though, and we’ve heard from our sources this week – the same ones who told us Jaimie Alexander would be back as Lady Sif in Thor: Love and Thunder long before she was confirmed to be returning – that Tatum could yet gets his chance to throw some superpowered playing cards.
According to our intel, one idea being discussed behind the scenes at Marvel is to have Gambit show up in one of the upcoming multiversal blockbusters, in what would presumably be a combination of fan service and laying more groundwork for the X-Men. Technically, seeing as the actor hasn’t yet played the character, Feige could also realistically hold off for a couple of years and have Tatum as the canonical Gambit whenever mutants are integrated into the mythology instead. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
