
It was revealed yesterday that Rupert Wyatt had chose to quit work on Fox’s ‘X-Men: Gambit’ movie in order to seek out other projects.
Wyatt issued the following statement, sent to CBR News via 20th Century Fox: “I was very much looking forward to working with my friend Channing [Tatum] and the team at Fox, but regrettably a push in the start date now conflicts with another project. I thank them for the opportunity, and I know that Gambit will make a terrific film.”
This pretty much leaves Fox with the difficult job or finding another suitable director for the film, which is still scheduled to be released in the Autumn of 2016.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, an escalating budget due to script issues also contributed to Wyatt’s exit.
In a related story producer Simon Kinberg has confirmed that ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Gambit’ are part of the same universe as ‘Days of Future Past’ – and there are plans for Avengers-style crossovers.
Kinberg spoke to MTV at the Toronto International Film Festival, revealing that he hopes to “cross-pollinate” characters from their standalone movies in the future.
“The idea is that we’ve sort of reset the timeline after Days of Future Past in some ways, and if not erased, certainly allowed for change from X1, 2, 3,” he said. “Everything from Days of Future Past forward, 1973, everything we set now becomes canon.”
“So the Gambit movie, the Deadpool movie, will exist in a world that acknowledges whatever happened in Days of Future Past and moving forward.
“Doesn’t mean they’ll always interact with those characters, obviously – it’s not like every movie has all the characters – but they all have to exist within the same rules.”
Kinberg added: “There will be interplay between different characters in different movies.”
All three properties have films due out next year, with X-Men: Apocalypse released in UK cinemas on May 19 and in the US on May 27.
Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool finally hits cinemas on February 12, and Channing Tatum is still set to star as Gambit in his own solo film due out on October 7, 2016.