James Bond Star Lea Seydoux Speaks Out on Channing Tatum's Failed Gambit Movie

Channing Tatum's Gambit film is one of those projects that, for many, will live on as something of a "what if" situation. The long-planned film was officially removed from the release schedule in 2019, marking the end of the road for the project, but now No Time to Die star Lea Seydoux is speaking out about the film, telling IndieWire (via Digital Spy) that the script for the project was really good.

Seydoux, who had been cast to play Bella Donna Boudreaux in Gambit revealed that the script contained humor and that she felt that it was very good and was very different from her previous work.

"The script was really good," Seydoux said. "It had some funny bits in it, but they wanted to make more of a comedy."

She continued, "I feel that in America people have imagination. I have been offered films very very far from what I've done and I'm like, 'Oh. Interesting.' I love to feel that I can adapt myself. For me, that's very exotic."

The Gambit film is a project that was long in development but had finally gotten close to filming when it was ultimately scrapped by Disney, a casualty of the acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Earlier this year, screenwriter Reid Carolin spoke about the film and its script, describing it as a "mutant Goodfellas".

"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."

Unfortunately, it never happened and it's something that Channing Tatum said was a traumatic experience.

"Once Gambit went away, I was so traumatized," Tatum shared with Variety. "I shut off my Marvel machine. I haven't been able to see any of the movies. I loved that character. It was just too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him."

What do you think about Seydoux's comments? Do you wish Gambit had gone forward? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Photo: Marc Piasecki/FilmMagi