Gambit co-writer Reid Carolin opened up about the scrapped X-Men spin-off’s story details.
Before Disney purchased Fox, the proprietors of the X-Men franchise, Reid Carolin and Channing Tatum were on task to create a Gambit film. The duo recently revealed that Fox was hesitant to make the film at first because they didn’t want them to helm the X-Men project. Tatum and Carolin eventually stepped away from the director’s chair and filming was on track to start until Disney shut them down.
Speaking with The Playlist, co-writer Reid Carolin revealed that they had worked on multiple scripts before they found the perfect one. They ultimately landed on a script that worked well within the Deadpool universe, another X-Men spin-off.
“I think it played really well in the Deadpool universe at Fox, Emma Watts had really championed it at Fox. They made Deadpool at Fox, and they understood that when you went a little punk rock with these characters you could pop some wheelies and really attract an audience.”
The Gambit co-writer continued by describing the film, teasing it as a “mutant ‘Goodfellas‘ in New Orleans.”
“We made this world in New Orleans that was a city of mutants that didn’t care about saving the world,” he explained. “They went there so they could use their powers to party and hook up, and their hands could fry the grease at MacDonald’s and whatever else, and the hardest thing for them to do was to fall in love because they could read each other’s minds. Or when they got into a fight, they could turn a table into a grenade and send their partner to the hospital or whatever. So, it was all this kind of low-level mutant fights and disagreements and we set in this world of the Mafia—almost kind of like a mutant Goodfellas in New Orleans.”
Reid Carolin is still hopeful that he and Channing Tatum get to resurrect the film at Marvel Studios, which now owns the rights to the X-Men franchise.
“I hold out hope that maybe someday it’ll come back. Channing is perfect for the role, and as long as they keep making Deadpool a character, he’ll need a world to play in and… if they want some more characters like that, I think [they should] come our way.”
Here is the synopsis for the final Fox X-Men film, Dark Phoenix:
“This is the story of one of the X-Men’s most beloved characters, Jean Grey, as she evolves into the iconic DARK PHOENIX. During a life-threatening rescue mission in space, Jean is hit by a cosmic force that transforms her into one of the most powerful mutants of all. Wrestling with this increasingly unstable power as well as her own personal demons, Jean spirals out of control, tearing the X-Men family apart and threatening to destroy the very fabric of our planet. The film is the most intense and emotional X-Men movie ever made. It is the culmination of 20 years of X-Men movies, as the family of mutants that we’ve come to know and love must face their most devastating enemy yet — one of their own.”
Written and directed by Simon Kinberg, Dark Phoenix stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, and Jessica Chastain.
Dark Phoenix is now available on Digital HD, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD. Stay tuned for the latest news regarding the future of the X-Men in the MCU!
Source: The Playlist