If you own the rights to a superhero property, you can't just sit on them any more. Marvel have managed to turn comic book adaptations into the biggest business around, releasing two (soon to be three) distinct movies a year and getting heaps of praise (and money) in the process. And because Hollywood's Hollywood, this means every other rights holder has to get in on the act. DC may be pushing out their Extended Universe, but it's Fox who are really going for it. Not only are they planning a sequel to the terrible Fantastic Four reboot nobody wanted in the first place (just so they can keep the rights no less), they're also trying to take the X-Men from bi-/tri-annual releases to multiple movies a year, supplementing the typical big movies with a lot of spin-offs. All of this in the face that they've never really got the non-ensemble movies to work. In 2016 they're really leaping the evolution forward. We'll kick off with Deadpool (12th February) and a couple of months later there's the bigger (and less irreverent) X-Men: Apocalypse (27th May), both of which have already been heavily publicised, and then Gambit, which finally locked Channing Tatum a few months back, on 7th October. Or at least that's been the plan; things are really failing to get moving on that movie; Rupert Wyatt (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes) has been attached to direct since June, but has reportedly left the film only a month before shooting. That's bad enough, but given that the film's been chugging along since 2011 and has had countless high-flying filmmakers decline the directing chair it's not looking like the film with make its release date. The long struggle to just get the film off the ground suggests there may be something that's not quite gelling with the movie, which is hardly surprising given that it's a new movie character (nobody mention Taylor Kitsch) whose main reason for being spun-off is nostalgia for X-Men: The Animated Series. But Wyatt's departure could be the final nail, showing this is one X-Man who's not destined for greatness. Maybe someone will step up and do an Ant-Man. Or maybe Gambit'll never see the light of day. For all my cynicism I hope it's the former. Gambit is (planned to) hit cinemas on 7th October, 2016.
