The recent Dark Phoenix trailer is confirmation enough that 20th Century Fox is going to keep making X-Men movies all the way up until the merger with Disney is complete. One film that may get in under the wire is Gambit, although after years of troubles even finding a director to join star Channing Tatum, that looks really unlikely despite recent reports of a looming start date. Simon Kinberg, director of Dark Phoenix and a creative force in the X-Men franchise, talked to IGN and gave his thoughts on the status of Gambit, and what genre he sees the film falling into…
“When you look at Gambit, he’s a hustler and a womanizer and we just felt like there was an attitude, a swagger to him, that lent itself to romantic comedy,” said Kinberg. “You know, when I say romantic comedy, I use that term loosely, in the same term that I use the term western for Logan loosely. It’s not like they’re gunslingers at high noon in Logan. It’s just a vibe. And I would say the vibe of Gambit has a romantic or sex comedy vibe to it. While it is also still very much a superhero movie with villains and heroes, as all these movies are.”
I don’t know if I’d classify Gambit as a womanizer. Popular with the ladies? Yes, but is he the use ’em and throw ’em away type? Not really. Then again, if this is an origin story as has been suggested in the past, and it includes his ex BellaDonna Boudreaux, then maybe I can see where Kinberg is coming from. Lea Seydoux had been cast in the role of BellaDonna but that, like so much else about this movie, didn’t last long.
Kinberg also backs up the plan to begin shooting “early next year”, saying they have a “great script” ready to go. That’s all well and good, but he doesn’t address the film’s lack of a director, which would seem to be a pretty big sticking point, right? Doug Liman, Gore Verbinski, and Rupert Wyatt were the previous directors attached, only to drop out fairly soon after.
