Gambit Director Jumps Ship To Justice League Dark

By Danny F. Santos (doddleNEWS)

I’d be lying if I said I saw this one coming, but director Doug Liman is now set to direct Justice League Dark for Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment. In order to do that he has dropped out of the Gambit standalone film for 20th Century Fox starring Channing Tatum.

Variety originally reported the news, but very little plot details were released regarding the project, which has been long in development by Guillermo del Toro before he left the project last year. Unlike Gambit, which has been dealt several release delays, Justice League Dark (officially titled Dark Universe) has never had a set date for the film.

I wonder if recent quotes from producer and X-Men universe overseer Simon Kinberg were an attempt at softening the media for this news, which Variety described as a mutual split. Kinberg recently spoke about Gambit and that the delay in production is due to trying to find a unique tone for the upcoming project. But he must have been aware on some level that Liman was leaving the project.

This all leads me to wonder what the situation is like over at the Marvel properties controlled by Fox. As of late, X-Men: Apocalypse and especially Fantastic Four were missteps for Fox’s Marvel franchises. Their biggest hit ever was Deadpool, which only got off the ground because a test video was leaked onto the internet, and behind-the-scenes urging from directors James Cameron and David Fincher. Even then, the film saw its budget reduced at the last minute by the studio, who it seems didn’t have a lot of faith in it.

I tend to harp on Warner Bros. and what they’re doing with the DC Extended Universe, but it seems to me that they’re attempting to learn from their mistakes. Fox, on the other hand, has no idea what to do with their X-Men franchises which, frankly, don’t make a lick of narrative sense anymore, especially in the new paradigm of shared universes.

All of this makes it difficult for me to work out where the blame lies. X-Men: Days of Future Past mixed past and future X-Men in an exciting way, but when you take a step back you realize that it hid the fact that it was a rehash of the same plot the X-Men movies always use. Without the original cast, it became apparent that Apocalypse was also following the same narrative beats.

The rebooted Fantastic Four had an interesting plot at one time before Kinberg rewrote the first act into a feature, with director Josh Trank also excited about that direction. There may have been an interesting movie in there, but the studio issued massive changes to it, so it’s hard to say exactly who screwed it up. Probably all of the above.

With all of the issues that Warners has, it at least makes the fanbase excited to watch each film. As critically poorly received Suicide Squad is, it is at least breaking box office records, while X-Men: Apocalypse made $200 million less than Days of Future Past. The cracks in the X-Men franchise are growing, and WB luring Liman away for Justice League Dark seems like another nail in the coffin. And don’t forget, Fox almost didn’t get an official deal with Gambit star Channing Tatum.

Stay tuned for more details on Dark Universe, aka, Justice League Dark.