French actress Léa Seydoux has recently spoken about her role in the scrapped Gambit movie that was set to star Channing Tatum as the titular mutant. Intended to be part of Fox’s long-running X-Men franchise, plans for a solo Gambit film were first announced in 2014 and it was intended to hit theaters in October 2016. The project would later run into a slew of development problems, however, and Tatum, who was also set to produce, would approach a number of potential directors who would each turn him down.
By June 2015 Tatum had finally secured Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt to helm the film, but would ultimately depart the role a mere three months later. Fox searched furiously for a replacement and ultimately settled on Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s Doug Liman, though he too would ultimately depart the project and would be replaced instead by the Pirates of the Caribbean’s Gore Verbinski. Continuing the unfortunate trend set forth by his predecessors, Verbinksi too would part ways with the studio, leaving the film without a director for the third time. By this time Disney had begun its acquisition of Fox, and while the studio continued to meet with potential directors, the project was officially placed on hold until the merger was complete. In May 2019, the film was finally canceled and pulled from the release schedule altogether.
Now Seydoux, who was originally set to play Tatum’s love interest in the film, has spoken with IndieWire about the original version of the script. Suggesting that they “wanted to make it more of a comedy”, she concedes the version of the script she read “was really good”.
The question for many Marvel fans now is, of course, whether there still may be a future for Tatum’s version of the character within the MCU. With Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness recently bringing Patrick Stewart’s Professor Charles Xavier back, one might argue that the possibility certainly remains. Despite this brief cameo appearance, however, exactly how Marvel Studios may potentially work the X-Men back into the MCU proper is still a topic of hot debate. Perhaps Tatum may get his chance to play the fan-favorite creole mutant after all, but there is certainly no guarantee. -We Got This Covered
