The Gambit movie, starring Channing Tatum, has not even begun filming, though it does have a new director (see “Geek Movie News Round-Up”) after losing director Rubert Wyatt due to scheduling conflicts (see "'Gambit' Loses Director"). The film was originally scheduled for October 7, 2016, however with production on the Gambit movie finally slated to begin this March, an October 2016 release date was clearly an impossibility for an effects-heavy superhero film.
Will Gambit be one of the two new Marvel-based Fox films announced today? The October, 2017 date makes sense if the Gambit film does begin production next month as scheduled, but there are other possibilities including an X-Force film that Jeff Wadlow is developing and even more likely (given the success of Deadpool), the already-ordered Deadpool 2 film that Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are currently busy writing. There is also still an “unnamed X-Men movie” scheduled for July 13, 2018 (see "Best in Shows--Q3 2018").
The January 12, 2018 date is a very interesting choice in its own right. January is not a month during which Hollywood studios typically debut their blockbuster films, in fact February wasn’t either until the Merc with a Mouth worked his magic this year. Is Fox planning to see if Deadpool 2 can make January "safe for blockbusters?" With more and more superhero films on studio schedules, finding spots where they won’t cannibalize each other’s ticket sales is getting increasingly difficult. Can anyone see where this is leading? Check out ICv2’s "Best in Shows" index to get a handle on the proliferation of comic book-based movies as we approach the end of the decade.
Fox also moved forward Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children to Sept. 30, 2016 from Dec. 25 (see "Best in Shows--Q3 2016").
