‘New Mutants’ delayed to 2019, ‘Gambit’ loses director Gore Verbinski, Fox moves ‘Deadpool 2’ to May

Big moves over at Fox as the X-Men spin-off movie Gambit lost yet another director with Pirates of the Caribbean filmmaker Gore Verbinski due to “scheduling issues.” Additionally,  New Mutants was pushed to 2019 while Deadpool 2 has moved up a couple of weeks.

New Mutants, the Josh Boone-directed horror film that stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, and Charlie Heaton, has been pushed back from its original April 2018 release date all the way until February 22, 2019.

THR detailed the Fox scheduling changes noting “Insiders say one reason for the change is for the studio to avoid having an overlap with X-Men movies in certain overseas marketplaces, where Mutants and Deadpool 2 would have been in theaters at the same time.”

Deadpool 2 was originally set to be released on June 1, 2018, but now it’ll arrive two weeks earlier, on May 18, 2018. Deadpool 2 is now opening one week before Disney/Lucasfilm’s Solo: A Star Wars Story. Since Star Wars movies are always genuine box office threats, this will at least give Deadpool 2 its time to shine before audiences.

According to Deadline, director Verbinski (A Cure for Wellness) has left the director’s chair of Gambit due to “scheduling issues,” and the site claims the split was amicable all around, but no word on whether Channing Tatum was still attached.

Gambit has been rescheduled from February 14, 2019 to June 7, 2019. The project has been mired in problems: Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) was the first to come on board as the Gambit director before he left because of behind-the-scenes conflicts, Doug Liman exited to helm The Wall and then Justice League Dark.

That should give the studio some extra time to hire a director and pull this project together.