Three years after he initially signed on for the movie, Channing Tatum is finally going to get to play card-throwing mutant Gambit in a spin-off of the X-Men film franchise. It's been a long road to develop Gambit, which has already seen directors Rupert Wyatt and Doug Liman drop out of the project. Now though, with a release date and a director, it looks like all systems are go.

Gambit will follow in the footsteps of Deadpool with a release in the middle of February--specifically, February 14, 2019. So start planning your Valentine's Day accordingly.

The film hails from 20th Century Fox and will be set in the same X-Men universe as Deadpool, Logan, and the upcoming New Mutants. As previously reported, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski is set to helm Gambit with a script from Josh Zetumer. Tatum will produce the film, alongside Reid Carolin, Simon Kinberg, and Lauren Shuler Donner.

This will not be the character's first appearance in the X-Men films. Previously, Taylor Kitsch played Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, though given how panned the film--and the portrayal of the character--was, it should come as no surprise that they are going in a different direction. Gambit is actually the second character from that film to be rebooted within the franchise, the first being Deadpool. Interestingly, Ryan Reynolds played both versions of the merc with a mouth.

Before Tatum hits the big screen as Gambit, there will be three other X-Men films coming to theaters. New Mutants, Deadpool 2, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix are all scheduled for 2018 releases.