It’s been a rough road for Gambit thus far. The Channing Tatum-led project has been hit with setback after setback, losing directors and being delayed several times. Currently, there isn’t much movement going on with it, but according to producer Simon Kinberg, we shouldn’t lose hope just yet.
In a recent interview, he spoke about the status of the film and why we haven’t seen much progress over the past couple of months, stating that they’re trying to get the script, voice and tone right.
 “We’ve gotta get the script right,” revealed Kinberg. “We just didn’t get the script to the place that we all felt like that movie deserved, so we’re still working on the script — we’re very close, actually, to being done with the script.
I think one of the things that I’ve learned on all of these movies — and maybe the lesson was best learned for me on ‘Deadpool’ — is the most important thing is getting the tone and the voice right. That the storytelling, the actual plots, are sort of interchangeable and disposable, ultimately.
If I ask you what your favorite movies are, you’re not going to tell me the plot, you’re going to tell me you love this character, and so what we’ve really tried to do with ‘Gambit’ is make sure we get the voice of that character right, and the tone of the comics 100 percent on the page.”
Kinberg also mentioned that they’re hoping to have Gambit be the start of a new franchise within the X-Men universe, kind of like Deadpool was, so it’s important that they take their time with it to get everything perfect. That makes sense, but at the same time, a lot of this sounds pretty vague. No one seems to be able to pin down a concrete start date for the film and the longer it languishes in development hell, the less chance we’ll have of seeing it actually come to fruition.
Then again, after 20th Century Fox saw how successful Deadpool was, they’re likely pretty eager to get another X-Men spinoff out of the gate, so who knows? Let’s just hope that Channing Tatum sticks around long enough to play the role.
