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‘Gambit’ Movie Delays May Push Release Date Past 2016

By Colin Fredericson
Published on: 10:04 PST, Jan 4, 2016

So the Gambit movie is met with difficulty in getting production started. The Gambit movie may miss the October, 2016 release date announced in January last year. Channing Tatum will definitely star, seeing as he has dropped out of a possible Ghostbusters spinoff. But it still took Fox so long to secure a director that production hasn’t even started. Unless they rush a sloppy movie into theaters only to feel the wrath of expectant comic book fans, they will have to move the release date into 2017.

The Gambit character first appeared on screen in the first Wolverine solo film. At that time, he was played by Taylor Kitsch. His portrayal of Gambit didn’t disappoint, though the movie as a whole got bad reviews. The current X-Men movie series is playing with time and rebooting itself. It seems only right for a Gambit character reboot, too. If Gambit were to meet its 2016 release date, it would be the third Fox film based on Marvel characters this year. One of those films is likely to be the runt. Hopefully it’s not this one.

Deadpool is coming out in February, followed by X-Men: Apocalypse leading into summer. It will be hard for Fox to get everything right on all of them. The movie producers couldn’t convince any directors to get started on this project for a good part of 2015. Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt was thought to have been secured as the director at last, but he left in September claiming there were scheduling conflicts. Only in November was Doug Liman officially brought on.

Rupert Wyatt’s agent explained in The Hollywood Reporter why Wyatt would want to turn down a project like this. The statement also helps you understand why the directors before him walked away from the Gambit movie.

“The studios, with these big movies, have very specific visions of what they want. They don’t necessarily want an auteur who’s going to try to reinvent the franchise. Of course the studios would love it if a director did what they want, when they want, but it doesn’t always work out.”

So a director is still an artist with a vision, and when they feel they can’t get that through to studio executives, they walk. Hopefully Liman has enough clout that 20th Century Fox can feel reassured and not push another director off this project.

As Cinema Blend reports, Doug Liman’s last hit was Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise. Getting involved with less than a year to shoot Gambit, any director would feel pressure. Fox hasn’t announced a push back on the release date, but Gambit fans have taken it into their own hands to get the ball rolling and the kinetic energy infused cards throwing. They’ve created their own trailer. This can give Fox and Liman some guidance in what fans will be looking for in the cinemas.

Hipster TV mixed in footage from a variety of sources, including some prior X-Men movies, Gambit’s last movie appearance, and their own created footage. Not exactly a shining example of filmmaking, but at least it’s something. And that’s more than what Fox has accomplished at this point, since they should have already made an official trailer.

In a packed year for comic book movies, a peculiar, mysterious superhero, a standout even among a raucous group like the X-Men, has a chance to finally capitalize on his cult following via movie theaters. How that will play out against all the other cinema delights that movie goers will be indulging in all year will determine if this movie is derided or praised. But the Gambit movie has a chance to be a distinctive addition to the superhero action thriller genre.

[Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images]

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