Doug Liman Signs Up As Next Person to Direct 'Gambit'
Liman will take over directing duties from former director Rupert Wyatt, who dropped out in September.
We’ve been carefully tracking the movements of both director Doug Liman and star Channing Tatum’s comic book dream project Gambit for some time, and it looks like the two are now a match made in Marvel heaven.
After recently completing a Tom Cruise-starring 1980s drug thriller titled Mena, Liman has joined up to helm the troubled production of Tatum’s standalone spin-off about the cajun X-Man himself.
Despite our well-intentioned guesses on who would get the gig after original director Rupert Wyatt dropped out over creative differences, a report by The Hollywood Reporter said that Liman was chosen out of a shortlist of other directors that included Attack the Block-helmer Joe Cornish, Shane Black, and F. Gary Gray before he signed on to direct the next Fast & Furious movie.
If you ask us, Liman is a good choice. He’s a battle-worn studio director that can deliver big budget actioners like The Bourne Identity or Edge of Tomorrow, even if the productions on those movies were a little rocky. Liman will pick up where Wyatt left off, and it won’t be easy. Gambit has been in development for some time, and 20th Century Fox already has October 7, 2016 as a release date set for the movie.
Tatum will both produce the movie and star as the titular hero.
Who knows if Liman will be able to deliver a competent $150 million superhero movie in less than a year. Something tells us Fox may be forced to move that date for fear of delivering an inferior product.
But rest assured, anything will be better than Gambit’s previous onscreen appearance on 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where he was played in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance by actor Taylor Kitsch (above). We trust in Liman, and if Gambit is a success then hopefully he’ll bring his talents to bigger and better things like, maybe, Mission: Impossible 6.
