Remember way back at SDCC 2015, when Fox released a starry cast photo uniting the leads of X-Men: Apocalypse, Fantastic Four and Gambit? In hindsight, it’s become an embarrassing reminder of three of the studio’s failures: Apocalypse and the FF reboot were panned and Channing Tatum’s Gambit was repeatedly delayed so many times that it never went into production before Fox was bought out by Disney.
Doug Liman was attached to the movie a few years back and it’s no surprise to hear that he believes the project is properly dead in the water now that Marvel Studios has got the rights back to the X-Men. Recently, ScreenGeek asked the filmmaker if he had any updates for the Ragin’ Cajun’s solo film and he admitted that he thinks it’s “done,” saying:
“No. Because I don’t know. I haven’t had an update since before the buyout. I think it’s done.”
This fits with what we’d already deduced from Disney’s reshuffling of Fox’s release schedule. Gambit was originally pegged to drop into cinemas on March 13th, 2020, but that release date has since been removed by the Mouse House. Also, Marvel already have one leftover from Fox in the form of The New Mutants – which is apparently set to arrive in April – and it seems they’re in no mood to release another.
Of course, Gambit could well be rebooted in the MCU as part of a new X-Men team. In which case, Tatum could find himself playing Remy LeBeau, after all. Or, maybe it could take the form of a Disney Plus spinoff series later down the line. Either way, the Gambit movie that Fox was preparing – said to be like a romcom mixed with a heist film – probably isn’t ever going to see the light of day.
