‘X-Men’ News: Channing Tatum Finds Director For ‘Gambit’ Movie
While Marvel continues doing what they do in their highly successful shared universe, Fox is plugging away at their X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, pulling what characters they can to help establish their own shared universe. Without a doubt, they’ve done wonders for the X-Men series (and in turn, the X-Men series has done well for them), and with X-Men: Apocalypse on its way, they’re looking to revitalize the timeline in a big, bad way. But between that, the Deadpool movie, and Hugh Jackman’s last appearance as Wolverine, we can’t forget about Channing Tatum’s upcoming Gambit flick, which is currently slated for an October 2016 release.
After months of speculation, it was finally confirmed last year that Magic Mike himself, Channing Tatum, would take up the role of Gambit, the card-playing, bo-staff wielding, fan-favorite mutant. Ever since attaching himself to the picture, Tatum has been working hard as producer trying to get it made. As Ryan Reynolds did with Deadpool before him, Tatum had to remain patient as he spearheaded the project. The only difference, of course, is that while Deadpool had a director from practically day one, Gambit has been left fatherless, without a director in sight.
According to Umberto Gonzalez, founder and editor-in-chief of Heroic Hollywood, Tatum had approached Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher) and Darren Aronofsky (Noah) to helm the Gambit film, only to be turned down. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but since Fox had already announced the movie’s release date, it was becoming increasingly important that the project find its director so that they could shoot this fall, in time to finish post-production for its October 2016 release. It isn’t unheard of for a movie to get pushed back, but history has definitely proven that once a movie has lost its momentum to get made, it’s hard to get it back.
Luckily, according to Entertainment Weekly, Tatum’s hunt is over, as Fox has finally locked down Rupert Wyatt, director of 2011’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and 2014’s The Gambler, to take on Gambit. No other details about the film have been revealed, but given Wyatt’s solid history, this can either be amazing, or very bad.
Gambit is the next film in the long line of X-Men spinoffs that have worked to undo the damage done by X-Men Origins: Wolverine, wherein both he and Deadpool‘s Wade Wilson appeared. If Fox’s recent track record is any indication, we’ll be in for a real treat.
Are you looking forward to see what director Rupert Wyatt brings to the table for the new Gambit movie? Let us know your comments below!
[Image Credits: Francine Orr, Hero Complex, Business 2 Community]
