We all know the now-infamous story of Edgar Wright’s Marvel journey, with the filmmaker spending several years developing Ant-Man before abruptly exiting the project months out from production. But fans are just finding out that Wright almost helmed another Marvel project.
Speaking to Slash Film, the Shaun of the Dead filmmaker talked about being approached by 20th Century Fox for an X-Men film, especially bringing to life the long-awaited Gambit movie. Wright goes on to say that he wasn’t the right pick for the job as he wasn’t familiar with the character all too well.
“Gambit wasn’t a character I knew too well,” he admits. “He appeared after my time reading Marvels – roughly 1985 – 1990 or so. [He] wasn’t one that I knew a lot about and hadn’t really read growing up, so it felt like it was someone else’s dream gig. Maybe he means more to people who watched the [animated] show? Which, again, was after my time.”
In a separate interview for Slash Film, we found out producer Simon Kinberg was the one who pushed for this. Kinberg said in the discussion, “He’s one of my favorite directors of all time and one of my favorite people, just a super great guy. Obviously a cinephile. I’ve chased Edgar for X-Men movies. I’ve chased him for literally every possible thing. We have talked about every movie.”
The Gambit film in question was the doomed Channing Tatum rendition, which was in gestation for quite some time, and the actor spoke about his heartbreak losing out on the gig.
Wright would never direct his superhero film for either Marvel Studios, Fox, or even DC Studios. But the filmmaker seems decidedly against franchise filmmaking for the moment, besides turning Scott Pilgrim into an anime.
