Doug Liman Comments On Leaving The Gambit Movie

05/15/2017 09:15 pm EDT

Director Doug Liman is no stranger to making fast-paced, visually impressive, intense action films.

The director made a huge impact with the Bourne Identity and followed that up with films like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow.

Though he's already made an action-based comic book movie—Edge of Tomorrow is based on the Japanese light novel and manga All You Need Is Kill—Liman had been involved in the production of Gambit with Channing Tatum before hopping on Justice League Dark.

Liman previously revealed that he abandoned the Gambit project because he "just wasn't feeling" the script, but recently detailed his reasons why in a new conversation with Collider in promotion of his new Amazon film The Wall.

"I never formed a connection. Many of these movies, I don't have the connection on day one, but I find the connection," Liman said. "I just never find it. I don't always find a connection. I want to make a movie that, if anybody else made it, it would be different."

Liman talked about making the film Swingers and how unlikable Vince Vaughn was in the script, and that was his connection. He knew any other filmmaker would have made Vaughn's character into an "asshole," and that he wanted to make him likable.

He added that making the film Go was very similar because it was a whole cast of unlikable characters, and his version of Go would celebrate them "instead of being judgmental of them."

"And ever since Go, I've looked for that personal connection where, because of the experiences I've had in life, if I tell this story, it will be fundamentally different than if any other director tells it, even if the experience I'm talking about is the previous movie I've made," Liman said.


Despite all his efforts, though, the director just couldn't make it work with Gambit.

"That's part of what didn't click for me on Gambit, in finding that unique way in," he said.

But Gambit is still in active development at Fox, according to producer Simon Kinberg.

Kinberg spoke with ComicBook.com previously and gave a hopeful status update on the film.

"It's a movie that we hope will be ready to go by the end of this year and shoot next year," Kinberg said. "We have two or three X-Men related movies this year so it can wait for a moment. 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."

MORE GAMBIT: Director Doug Liman Reveals Why He Left The Gambit Movie / X-Men Producer Simon Kinberg Gives Major Update / Producer Confirms Channing Tatum Is Still Attached To Gambit / Movie Delays Explained By X-Men Producer Simon Kinberg

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