We’re still waiting to see what Marvel Studios plans to do with their major overhaul and reboot of the “X-Men” franchise (minus a handful of nods and teases), but there is a neat bit of information about one of the Fox-era projects that never saw the light of day, “Gambit.”
Actress Lizzy Caplan (“The Interview”), who was originally cast alongside Channing Tatum (“21 Jump Street”) and Lea Seydoux (“No Time To Die”), has revealed the tone the scrapped superhero heist pic was going for while chatting with Business Insider. “They wanted to do, like, a ’30s kind of screwball romantic comedy set in that world, which would have been really fun,” Caplan said of the tone for the never-made “Gambit” movie.
Not exactly what you’d expect from a Marvel project, but then again, Fox and producers were attempting some experimental ideas as seen with a lower-budget mature satire like “Deadpool” and “Logan” killing off Wolverine in a tear-jerking fashion. And at this point Tatum had a large female audience thanks to the success of the “Magic Mike” movies, so adding in a romantic comedy angle isn’t that shocking given Remy and Rogue’s long-standing will-they-won’t-they dynamic.
Some of the rumored story beats for “Gambit” involved a major heist, possibly in Europe, hints of the involvement of legacy X-Men villain Mister Sinister (Jon Hamm was once in the mix to play him for Fox), and could feature a bunch of Remy’s mutant cohorts alongside his Cajun gangster roots via The Thieves and The Assassins, rival groups in the mutant criminal underworld from Gambit’s hometown of New Orleans.
A glaring issue for “Gambit” was a revolving door of directors (Shawn Levy admitting he nearly got involved himself) and the writing team, which eventually featured Tatum himself, were trying their best to rework the film after multiple leaks before cameras even rolled. It ended up on the pile of nixed “X-Men” movies (alongside things like Drew Goddard’s “X-Force” and James Mangold’s “X-23” spinoff) once Disney and Marvel acquired the franchise rights from 21st Century Fox. After the shake-up, it didn’t seem like the merger left much room for more tinkering on the solo pic.
Skip to 2024, and Tatum finally got to live out his dream to play Gambit in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” with a deleted scene from the billion-dollar hit that may have given a clue to the character’s future in the MCU thanks to The Multiverse. What that future looks like remains a mystery but it is nice to hear that “Gambit” was going out of its way to attempt a romantic angle to it and that ultimately, Channing got to play the character (replacing Taylor Kitsch from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine).
Gambit is certainly a fan-favorite mutant character among X-Men fans, not just Tatum, so we won’t be shocked if he shows up again down the line.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://theplaylist.net/gambit-movie-lizzy-caplan-x-men-channing-tatum-20250226/&media=https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/26105742/LIZZY-CAPLAN_TALKS_GAMBIT_MOVIE_CHANNING-TATUM_.jpg&description=Lizzy Caplan reveals that Channing Tatum's solo "Gambit" movie would have had a tone similar to a "screwball romantic comedy" from the 1930s.){kind=link}