Having first been announced back in 2014, 20th Century Fox’s planned X-Men spinoff Gambit has found itself stuck in development hell, passing through the hands of directors Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) as the studio seemingly struggled to perfect its take on the fan favourite mutant, set to be portrayed by Channing Tatum.
During the San Diego Comic-Con, Tatum revealed that he is still attached to the film, but they have decided to retool their approach following the success of Deadpool and Logan. And now the folks at Splash Report claim to have the inside scoop on the plot for the film, which they describe as “the Ocean’s 11 of the comic book genre”.
Remy Lebeau (Channing Tatum) is on trial in New-Orleans. He’s considered a huge security risk. We flashback to almost 25 years before. Master thief Luke Lebeau runs into eight-year-old Gambit while doing a heist. Impressed by his skills, he offers to take the mutant orphan under his wings. Raised alongside other strays he calls “cousins”, the teenage Gambit becomes the superstar of the Thief Guild. He encounters Bella Donna Boudreaux while on the run from the police. Sparks immediately fly since Bella is also a fellow mutant. Their love is directly prohibited by both families since the Boudreaux are sworn enemies of the Lebeau clan. Deciding to unite the two sides, Remy offers to have the two clans team up on a HUGE heist to profit both families. Of course, the whole plan goes awry, and in the chaos, Maryanne Boudreaux shoots and kill Luke Lebeau.
We jump to 10 years later; Gambit is hired to do a job in Paris to steal something from the Louvre Museum. It was apparently a test job to see if he still has it. His mysterious employer is revealed to be Nathaniel Essex a.k.a. Mr. Sinister. He offers Gambit 40 million to recover a mysterious trunk that was stolen by the Boudreaux clan. It will be auctioned off during the yearly Thieves Ball where all the criminal organizations in the world meet up. It uses New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebrations as a cover. Gambit decides to enlist a crew of mutants to pull off this seemingly impossible heist…
The site goes on to report that the script makes reference to both X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Days of Future Past, as well as featuring the characters of Dani Moonstar, Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man and Marrow.
It should be noted that the report comes with the disclaimer that “it’s entirely possible the entire plotline of this project has been completely scrapped and the new writer hired has started from scratch”, which provides a handy get-out clause if this turns out to be a work of fiction. So, we may have to take all this with a pinch of salt, but do let us know what you make of the rumoured plot in the comments below…
