The Gambit solo movie featuring Channing Tatum as the popular X-Men mutant (and master thief) is indeed moving forward, as the studio has hired RoboCop (the 2014 one) writer Josh Zetumer to pen the script for the film.
According to Deadline, Zetumer’s script will be based on a treatment for the film penned by celebrated comic-book writer Chris Claremont, who co-created the character with Jim Lee in the early ’90s. The recent RoboCop remake is Zetumer’s only feature credit to date.
Tatum was announced as the star of the film back in May, and he’s expected to debut as the character in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
While details of the film’s proposed storyline haven’t been released yet, the film isn’t expected to sync up with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the 2009 film that cast Taylor Kitsch as Gambit opposite Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Now that X-Men: Days Of Future Past effectively rebooted the entire X-Men movie continuity, though, anything is possible as far as reboots and origin stories for various characters that aren’t already part of the X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days Of Future Past timeline.
First appearing in a 1990 issue of Uncanny X-Men, the Marvel Comics iteration of Gambit is a New Orleans native who has the power to charge anything he touches with an explosive burst of kinetic energy. He often uses his ability to turn playing cards into volatile grenades that he flings at enemies. In comic canon, he’s also a master thief with impressive sleight-of-hand skills and an accomplished fighter and acrobat.
There’s no release date set for Gambit yet and no director confirmed for the project, but the film is expected to hit theaters after X-Men: Apocalypse.
