It looks like 20th Century Fox’s ‘Gambit’ movie with Channing Tatum is going to happen after all.

The troubled ‘X-Men’ spin-off, set to star Tatum in the role first played by Taylor Kitsch in 2009’s ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine,’ had originally been scheduled to hit cinemas last October, only eight months after surprise smash hit ‘Deadpool,’ and five months after the surprisingly underwhelming ‘X-Men: Apocalypse.’

However, after rumours of trouble behind the scenes, original director Rupert Wyatt left, to be replaced by Doug Liman – who also left to take on Warner Bros/DC’s ‘Dark Universe.’ For some time, the status of the project has been in doubt – but now, X-Men writer/producer Simon Kinberg has declared it’s still very much on the cards (pun intended, Gambit fans).

Channing Tatum as Gambit – Credit: Marvel/WENN More

Kinberg tells ComicBook.com, “It’s in active development. It’s a movie that we hope will be ready to go by the end of this year and shoot next year. We have two or three X-Men related movies this year so it can wait for a moment.”

Things are indeed busy on the ‘X-Men’ front right now, with ‘Logan’ incoming and ‘Deadpool 2’ set to shoot this year, whilst ‘The New Mutants’ and ‘X-Men: Supernova’ (on which, it has been reported, Kinberg hopes to make his directorial debut) may also be close to starting production. ‘X-Force’ and a third ‘Deadpool’ are also expected – but, sad to say, no Wolverine/Deadpool team-up movie.

Explaining what’s been going on with ‘Gambit,’ Kinberg says, “The process has been that Channing [Tatum] is as determined about getting the character right as Ryan Reynolds was about Deadpool and Hugh [Jackman] was about this ‘Logan’ movie.

“We know that when we get those right, the movie succeeds so we want to make sure we get Gambit right because we want him to be the beginning of a whole new franchise.”

I daresay there are a fair few X-Men fans who would like to see that too – and given how long we had to wait for ‘Deadpool’ to make it the screen, I’m sure we can stand to wait for ‘Gambit,’ so long as that means they get the character right.

In the meantime, the X-movie machine keeps on turning with ‘Logan,’ in UK cinemas from 1 March.

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