Today, Disney unleashed what can only be described as an overwhelming onslaught of release dates. To say that the list—which includes three new Star Wars movies, five new Avatar movies, live-action remakes, a handful of Marvel movies, and all those acquisitions from Fox—inspires existential dread (the final Avatar movie will be released in 2027, for fuck’s sake) might be an understatement. Disney’s release schedule is relentless, but as ScreenCrush points out, the studio has granted one small mercy: Gambit is nowhere in sight. In fact, Channing Tatum’s long-long-long-long-developing X-Men spinoff has been yanked from the schedule entirely, retreating back to the development hell from whence it came.
Gambit, which was set to star Tatum (who was also producing) as the title character—a cajun mutant with an affinity for playing cards—and Lizzy Caplan as his love interest, has been in some form of development for several years. The project has seen no less than three directors come and go in that time, starting with Rupert Wyatt back in 2015, followed by Doug Liman and, more recently, Gore Verbinski. For whatever reason, no one could seem to get this Gambit thing off the ground, and it looks like Disney isn’t in any rush to sort it out.