20th Century Fox and actor Channing Tatum spent years working on a solo film adaptation of the X-Men character Gambit – a project that came close to production but never actually made it to filming.
Tatum was first cast in the role for “X-Men: The Last Stand” until the character was written out of the script. He was then to play it in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” but his “G.I. Joe” filming commitments prevented it, leading to Taylor Kitsch playing the role in the character’s only live-action appearance to date.
Plans for a solo “Gambit” film began in 2014, a New Orleans-set standalone film to be written by Josh Zetumer based on a story by the character’s creator Chris Claremont. Tatum was set to star in the title role and produce, Lea Seydoux was cast in the female lead, and then the project stalled as a series of directors came and went, including Rupert Wyatt, Doug Liman and Gore Verbinski.
A series of rewrites and further delays saw the film then cancelled in mid-2019 – one of the most visible victims of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox and the cancellation of much of the latter’s development slate.
Recently, storyboard frames from artist Anthony Winn’s ArtStation page – dubbed ‘pitch mood boards’ – have been shared online. The concept art showcases a random scene from the scrapped “Gambit” film in which Tatum’s character can be seen throwing a kinetically charged bottle of alcohol at a fence and exploding on impact.
Winn has gone on to work on a variety of other Marvel Studios projects such as this year’s “Thor: Love and Thunder”.
Click here to check out those storyboards over at Artstation.com.
