A standalone X-Men film starring Gambit movie is inching closer to reality. Today an official release date was revealed, bringing a second X-movie to 2016.
The exact date is October 7, which will place it a few months after X-Men: Apocalypse, the storyline that was teased in the post-credits scene of the last installment. Now that we have a solid release date, here’s everything else we know so far.
He’ll be played by Channing Tatum.
Tatum is also the one who revealed the release date, confirming suspicions that the movie would placed in Fox’s empty October 7, 2016 slot.
It will likely be an origin story, but Tatum says their approach to the character is “fresh.”
A few months back, Tatum told MTV News that:
I don’t want to give too much away because we don’t know that much right now other than…we obviously know who Gambit is. We really do want to try our hardest to give something fresh. We’re obviously going to go to the saving the world superhero movies eventually, but maybe not for the first one.
We want to introduce this character in a very different way. You know, when you try to do something different you never really know, right off the bat, what that is. We’re feeling our way, and really just kind of proving the concept of that person.
The character will be a part of the X-Men movie universe.
After how well-received Days of Future Past‘s timeline-hopping crossover was, Fox is very keen on continuing to expand their X-Men movie-verse. Tatum’s Gambit will definitely be a part of all that, and rumors even suggest that he may even appear in X-Men: Apocalypse, which will precede Gambit in May 2016.
The script will be written by the guy who did the new Robocop.
Josh Zetumer has penned the latest draft of the screenplay, and Fox must be pretty happy with it if they’ve given the movie an official release date. Zetumer most recently wrote the Robocop remake, which was way better than it had any business being.
The script so far is based on a treatment by Chris Claremont, a comic book writer and the original creator of Gambit, as well as and longtime X-Men producers Simon Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner.
This won’t be the first (or even second) time Gambit’s tried to squeeze his way into a movie.
For anyone who managed to dodge X-Men Origins (lucky you), this will be the second live-action version of the character. Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch appeared as Gambit in the 2009 film, and hasn’t appeared again in the X-Men movie universe since.
As a weird bit of bonus trivia though, Origins‘ Gambit was not the first time filmmakers tried to bring the character to the big screen. For X2, a cameo featuring Gambit was actually filmed (starring James Bamford), but was ultimately cut.
And in X-Men: The Last Stand, Bryan Singer initially wanted Gambit to appear… played by Keanu Reeves. No joke. And to bring things around full circle, Channing Tatum reportedly auditioned for that part, before the role was cut from the film entirely.
