Posted in: Movies | Tagged: doug liman, film, gambit

Doug Liman "Didn't Connect" With 'Gambit' So He Left

Gambit is sort of the black sheep at 20th Century Fox at the moment. It's a movie that was announced years ago and has had delay after delay despite having a major star in Channing Tatum attached. Diretor Doug Liman is one of the several directors that has left the troubled Fox production and while talking to Collider about his new movie The Wall was asked about why he decided to leave Gambit.

"I never formed a connection. Many of these movies, I don't have the connection on day one, but I find the connection. I just never found it. I don't always find a connection. I want to make a movie that, if anybody else made it, it would be different. When I went to make Swingers, I showed the script to a friend of mine, and she said, 'Why would you want to make this movie? The Trent character' – who was played by Vince Vaughn – 'is totally unlikeable.' I was like, 'Oh, my God, I love Trent! That's the reason I'm making this movie!' She was like, 'You're crazy! He's totally unlikeable!' And then, I made the movie and she saw the movie, and she was like, 'You're right, he is likeable.' And then, I went to make Go and I showed the script to the same friend, and she said, 'I don't know why you'd make this movie. Nobody in this film is likeable!' Right in that moment, it clicked. I was like, 'I get it! I need to make Go, for the same reason that I needed to make Swingers. Somebody else making Swingers might have made Vince Vaughn's character into an asshole and been judgmental about him.' My specific take on that character is what the audience then took away, so I knew that I needed to make Go because my version of Go celebrated those characters instead of being judgmental of them. I knew that everybody would like those characters because I liked them."

Go turned out to be the movie that killed any interest Liman had in Gambit because it made him truly realize how important it was to him, as a creator, to have a real connection with the movie he was going to work on.

"Ever since Go, I've looked for that personal connection where, because of the experiences I've had in life, if I tell this story, it will be fundamentally different than if any other director tells it, even if the experience I'm talking about is the previous movie I've made. My version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith would be fundamentally different than any other director's version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith because I just made The Bourne Identity. I made a movie that celebrated someone being an action hero, and no one else is going to have had that experience, going into Mr. & Mrs. Smith, to then reject it and choose to embrace the exact opposite. That's part of what didn't click for me on Gambit, in finding that unique way in."

As far as reasons for leaving a production go this seems like a legitimate one. Fox properties only seem to flourish when they are under the care of people that truly love and respect the source material with Deadpool and Logan being too most obvious examples. If Liman didn't feel like he connected with Gambit enough to do it justice then perhaps it was best that he move on from the production.

As for Gambit it is quickly becoming the new Deadpool as it is another Fox property with a major star attached, who has a lot of love for the source material, that is likely never going to get made.

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