Gambit Screenwriter Says “Disney Scrapped It,” Compares Film to “Mutant Goodfellas”

While the X-Men films were big successes for 20th Century Fox, the acquisition of the studio by Disney a few years ago changed everything in terms of Fox’s X-Men plans. Among the films that were cancelled was the Gambit film starring Channing Tatum. The long-planned film, which would have opened on March 13, 2020, was officially removed from the release schedule in 2019. Now, with the dream of a Gambit movie over, we’re getting new details about what the film would have been like and according to the film’s screenwriter Reid Carolin, it would have been a “mutant Goodfellas” had Disney not scrapped it.

Speaking with The Playlist, Carolin called the script one of his favorites and then offered up details about the film’s New Orleans as a “city of mutants that didn’t care about saving the world.”

“We made this world in New Orleans that was a city of mutants that didn’t care about saving the world,” Carolin said. “They went there so they could use their powers to party and hook up, and their hands could fry the grease at McDonald’s and whatever else and the hardest thing for them to do was to fall in love because they could read each other’s minds, or when they got into a fight, they could turn a table into a grenade and send their partner to the hospital or whatever. So, it was all this kind of low-level mutant fights and disagreements, and we sit in this world of the Mafia—almost kind of like a mutant Goodfellas in New Orleans.”

Carolin also said that the film was just months away from filming when it was scrapped by Disney and in previous comments to Variety, he revealed just how close it all was.

“We were right on the one-yard line,” Carolin said. “We had cast the film. We’d opened up a production office. We were on our way to shoot in New Orleans.”

While the Gambit movie seems to be something that Disney has moved on from, especially with Marvel now back in control of the rights to the X-Men, Carolin did say that he’s hopeful the project could still come back in the future—and that he still thinks Tatum is perfect for the title role.

“Those guys at Marvel have a really good thing going and I’m sure they have a plan that I don’t know about for the X-Men universe and I’m not going to tell them how to do their jobs, they’re nailing it,” he said. “But I hold out hope that maybe someday it’ll come back—Channing is perfect for the role. And as long as they keep making Deadpool a character, he’ll need a world to play in… if they want some more characters like that, I think [they should] come our way.”

What do you think about Carolin’s comments? Are you sad that a Gambit movie isn’t happening? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.