Why Edgar Wright Turned Down Fox’s Doomed Gambit Movie

Another Marvel project that Edgar Wright was approached to work on besides Ant-Man was Fox’x Gambit film, as the filmmaker reveals why he declined the offer. Since the original X-Men movie in 2000, several iconic mutants have come to life in live-action both on the big and small screens. However, one mutant whose cinematic journey was not as successful was Remy Etienne LeBeau. a.k.a. Gambit, who made his live-action debut in 2009 through X-Men Origins: Wolverine, played by Taylor Kitsch.

For several years, there was an attempt to do an X-Men spinoffmovie for Gambit with Channing Tatum, and it turns out that a very popular filmmaker was being looked at for the project. In a new interview with /Film, Simon Kinberg revealed that he had approached Wright to work on an X-Men movie, stating that “He’s one of my favorite directors of all time and one of my favorite people, just a super great guy. Obviously a cinephile… I’ve chased Edgar for ‘X-Men’ movies. I’ve chased him for literally every possible thing. We have talked about every movie.” The outlet followed up with Wright where he revealed that it was actually for the Gambit project, as he explained why he didn’t want to do it:

Gambit wasn’t a character I knew too well. He appeared after my time reading Marvels — roughly 1985 — 1990 or so. [He] wasn’t one that I knew a lot about and hadn’t really read growing up, so it felt like it was someone else’s dream gig. Maybe he means more to people who watched the [animated] show? Which again, was after my time.

RELATED: All The X-Men Movies In Chronological Order

The story of the Gambit movie only got more complicated as the years went by after Tatum was cast for the titular role. Gambit went through multiple creative changes as Rupert Wyatt, Doug Liman, and Gore Verbinski were all attached as directors at different points before eventually leaving the film due to scheduling conflicts. Gambit’s delays would also seem to be based on the fact that the X-Men cinematic universe was constantly up in the air as the franchise began to struggle after X-Men: Days of Future Past.

The specific reasons for Gambit’s constant development hell seemed to stem from creative issues behind the scenes as the script went through multiple re-writes. It wasn’t until the mutant rights reverted back to Marvel Studios when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox that the Gambit project was officially scrapped, making it one of the many canceled X-Men movies. Tatum has been on record to talk about his disappointment that he never got the Gambit movie made, having expressed that “we’ve got to spiritually, emotionally, kind of mentally let it go.“

Since Marvel Studios is finally getting ready to reboot the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Gambit will have a fresh new opportunity to be handled right on the big screen. Whether it is him having his own spinoff movie or being a supporting player in the X-Men reboot movie, Gambit is a major fan-favorite who would be fun to see in the MCU sooner rather than later. Hopefully, once the X-Men finally make their arrival in the MCU, Gambit won’t be far away.

Source: /Film

Key Release Dates