by: S. Scott Stanikmas – Senior Staff Writer

I hope Doug Liman is good with a deck of cards, because he’s going to need them.

The director is in final talks to direct the upcoming FOX film Gambit, another addition to the X-Men franchise, taking over for Rupert Wyatt who departed the project suddenly almost two months back.

Liman is no stranger to big budget action pieces. He’s directed films like Edge of Tomorrow, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity, the latter two being films that also suffered from troubled productions.

Other names in the running were Joe Cornish, Shane Black and F. Gary Gray.

Wyatt was said to have left the production due to “creative differences” and sources for The Hollywood Reporter clarified that “He wants to make the best version of something, and he’s so desperately afraid of making something not good.”

Liman is behind the eight ball on this one. The studio still seems to be sticking to their October 7, 2016 release date and stars Channing Tatum and Lea Seydoux may have other projects lined up so the emphasis seems to be on making this sooner rather than later.

FOX was hoping that the Gambit character would be the new lynchpin of the X-Men cinematic franchise after Hugh Jackman pops the claws for the last time in the upcoming third solo Wolverine film, which reportedly drops in early 2017.

Tatum will be playing the ragin’ Cajun mutant with the ability to manipulate kinetic energy. The role was once played by Taylor Kitsch in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but as is evidenced by the upcoming Deadpool film, FOX seems to be ignoring (smartly, since it was a pile of garbage) that movie entirely.