'X-Men' Spinoff 'Gambit' Loses Its Director (Exclusive)

Doug Liman is no longer directing Gambit. The Mr. and Mrs. Smith director has moved off Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Men spin-off, which still has Channing Tatum attached to star.

Insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter the studio is still intent on starting production in January and has Josh Zetumer on writing duties. A source describes the split as a “mutual parting of ways.”

A search is already underway for a new director to helm the project that tells of a New Orleans-based mutant with the power to manipulate kinetic energy and whose weapons include a staff and a deck of playing cards.

Liman signed onto the project in October 2015 after the departure of Rupert Wyatt. Gambit has seen its start date pushed several times — it was to have begun shooting in the fall of 2015, then early 2016. Script rewrites have been a recurring issue and earlier this year they pushed the start again to early 2017.

That delay left Liman to tackle another project, the small-scale psychological thriller The Wall set up at Amazon Studios, which he recently wrapped.

Simon Kinberg, Tatum and his partner Reid Carolin are among those producing Gambit.