The long-awaited Channing Tatum Gambit movie may be dead, but it may have been for the best. That’s weird to say since Hot Fuzz’s Edgar Wright may have been the one to helm the flick starring the popular X-Men character.

Thanks to /Film‘s interview with Simon Kinberg, someone associated with the on-screen antics of Marvel’s mutants for many years, we learned why Edgar Wright turned down the chance to bring a more fleshed-out version of Gambit to the silver screen.

Kinberg relayed what Wight had told him about the opportunity, quoting the filmmaker, “Gambit wasn’t a character I knew too well. He appeared after my time reading Marvels — roughly 1985 — 1990 or so. [He] wasn’t one that I knew a lot about and hadn’t really read growing up, so it felt like it was someone else’s dream gig. Maybe he means more to people who watched the [animated] show? Which, again, was after my time.”

That’s understandable and a credit to Edgar Wright. Too many directors come on board not knowing anything about a property and using characters as skinsuits for their messages and agendas.

Wright was pursued hard to be added to the slate of X-Men films. Writer and producer Kinberg told /Film, “I’ve chased Edgar for ‘X-Men’ movies. I’ve chased him for literally every possible thing. We have talked about every movie.”

Kinberg’s writing credits include both the highs and lows of the X-Men movie franchise. His credits include X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix. Oh, and he also wrote the screenplay for the laughable 2015 Fantastic Four picture.

I’m unsure if Edgar Wright’s style would fit well with those kinds of scripts, considering only one of those last few mutant movies was good. Maybe an outstanding director can save a terrible story and dialog?

Although we may never see the movie become a reality, at least with Tatum as the lead, there is a chance that the actor could appear as Gambit in Deadpool 3.

[Source: /Film]