Rupert Wyatt details his ‘Gambit’ film, likening it to ‘Godfather’ tainted by budget cuts
While promoting his new film, Captive State, director Rupert Wyatt addresses his plans for a Gambit film project over at Fox with Channing Tatum as the titular X-Men character.
“Fantastic Four came out, did not do very well for Fox, [and] they decided to lower our budget. We were 12 weeks out, we couldn’t recover. The script needed a huge amount of rewriting in order to fit that budget, and ultimately the powers that be chose not to go down that road, so the film didn’t happen. And then of course whatever happened after me with other directors, I have no idea. What I do know is that Channing Tatum and his producing partner Reid Carolin had an amazing idea of what that movie was going to be, and Josh Zeutemer, the writer, as well. It was terrific, it was a really exciting sort of Godfather with mutants set in the world of New Orleans with different gangs.”
When asked if the film was supposed to be a heist movie, Wyatt actually likened his version more to The Godfather and revealed it would have been set partially in the 1970s: “Yeah [a heist film] of a sort. I mean it was a period film. It dealt with the 70s up until the present day. It was about kind of mutant gangs and the notion of what it means to belong, tribalism in this bayou-like environment. The swamps of New Orleans. So it would’ve been a lot of fun. I know Channing sort of worked on the script to make it into more of a romantic comedy, I think. Which I read and it was great, it was very different to what I was involved in. But now Disney have the reins so I don’t know what their plans are.”
Wyatt said he, Tatum, and the producers were insistent that they get the film ready to go before starting production, to avoid costly reshoots, and said their budget never got anywhere close to the reported $150 million: “I mean look, this is probably getting in the weeds too much but it is interesting to talk about. Invariably what happens with that kind of process of filmmaking, if people don’t have their ducks in a row, they’ll throw it at the wall and they’ll then realize it’s not sticking, and they’ll then spend the $150 million to get it right. Now as a filmmaker I’ve been through that process and it’s really hard to then end up with a piece of work that actually functions and has a cohesive story to it. I think we were in a place—Channing, me, Reid, the producers—where we didn’t wanna have to go through that experience. We wanted to set out to make a particular film and deliver on that, so the whole process of reshoots and all of that stuff, we didn’t wanna go down that road.”
Doug Liman and Gore Verbinski both tried to make Gambit work but left for undisclosed reasons.
