Gambit Movie Is a Sexy Heist Thriller with Channing Tatum

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Gambit Is a “Heist Movie” and “Sexy Thriller” Says Producer Simon Kinberg

By Matt Goldberg

Published Nov 16, 2015

He also comments on when they plan to start filming and admits that October 2016 release date may be a bit of a long shot.

It looked like Gambit was gearing up to start shooting this fall, but then director Rupert Wyatt dropped out and the project was left wandering. However, the X-Men spinoff of sorts is very much alive, and while we don’t have any details on the plot, Steve recently spoke to producer Simon Kinberg, who provided some new info on the upcoming superhero flick starring Channing Tatum as the eponymous Cajun.

For those who don’t know, Kinberg is sort of the overseer for all of the mutant-related properties brewing at 20th Century Fox, and he understands that while these films all exist in the superhero genre, their tones can be drastically different.

“I mean Deadpool obviously has a very different, almost antithetical tone to the mainline X-Men movies,” says Kinberg. “The X-Men movies are dramatic and almost operatic, whereas Deadpool is irreverent and hysterical and sort of a dirty R-rated comedy in many ways. And Gambit will have its own different flavor and tone to it, will be more of like a heist movie and a sexy thriller in a way.”

While we’ve seen the superhero heist movie before with Ant-Man, it was a bit underwhelming. The movie hit the right beats of a heist film, but it felt rote and inert. Hopefully, Kinberg and his crew will have more luck with Gambit. It’s certainly the right genre for the thieving character. However, there was nothing wrong with making Ant-Man a heist film; the question is a matter of execution.

We spoke to Kinberg in the middle of last week, and it was before we knew Doug Liman was nearing a deal to direct, so keep the following quote in mind where the producer talks about his excitement for the project:

SIMON KINBERG:…we have a director in and I don’t know if I’m allowed to say who it is yet because his deal isn’t done, but it’s somebody we’re excited about, and somebody I adore, and hopefully we can make an announcement soon about that. But we’ve been spending a lot of time together—Channing, [Reid Carolin, Tatum’s producing partner], [screenwriter Joshua Zetumer], the director, and myself—just working on the script, and we hope to start shooting next spring.

Since the fall start date is no longer happening, Kinberg all but confirmed that Fox’s previously announced October 7, 2016 release is out of the cards. More than likely, we’ll see Gambit and his sexy heist some time in 2017.