There are hundreds and hundreds of characters in the X-Men universe and only a precious limited amount of screen time. THerefore, not everyone can get in. Many people have complained about their various favorite characters not making the cut, but no character had a bigger outcry than Gambit… and for good reason. He’s a rich character with a huge following.
The problem has always been, as we’ve said here before, is that on the screen, Gambit was too much like the way they portrayed Wolverine. It didn’t make sense for them to both be in there considering they were both the rough, outsider, do things my own way, kind of characters. BUT…
Now that Wolverine is getting a spin off movie of his own… and isn’t likely to appear in X_men 4, the ground is ripe for Gambit to finally appear. And according to X-Men producer Lauren Schuler Donner, sounds like he will! More than that, looks like they’ve already got their eye on an actor for the role. The good folks at Movie Hole give us this:
Talking to IESB, “X-Men” series producer Lauren Schuler Donner mentioned that model cum actor Holloway – who plays Sawyer on the hit TV series – is someone that she’d love to see in the role of the comic-book mutant. (Holloway actually near signed up to play the part last year). “Remember in “Lost”? The guy, what’s his name, there was a guy in there that was the perfect Gambit, the guy with the straight hair, good-looking, the bad boy…Sawyer, Sawyer”, she said.
As for the studio’s plans for ‘Gambit’, the producer remains tight-lipped, except to say that he will pop up in one of the forthcoming “X-Men” adventures. (She’s not saying whether that will be “X-Men 4”, the Young “Magneto” movie or “Wolverine”). “The reason we didn’t use Gambit [in “X-Men” 1-3] was because in a sense his persona is a bit like Wolverine in that he’s got attitude and his power is not quite as exciting as the others”, said Schuler-Donner. “That’s why we went to Nightcrawler on 2 because he looked different than everybody else and he had a great power. So yes, I think we would weave Gambit within our story, [but] it wouldn’t be The Gambit Movie”.
I don’t watch Lost, so I really have no idea if this dude is right for the role, or if he has any talent, so I’ll let you guys chime in on this one.
Adding Gambit to the X-Men movies would be a great idea on several levels:
1) It will make the fans happy
2) It will fill the role being left behind by Wolverine
3) He’s an action oriented character which plays to the X-Franchise strengths
4) Gambit has a rich background. With most of the lose ends tied off in X-3, some new story fooder is needed.
So there you have it kiddies, looks like Gambit will finally arrive on the X-scene. What do you think? Would this be good news? Bad news? What are your thoughts?
