Gambit, the X-Men spinoff starring Channing Tatum that never was and may never be, is looking to bring Gore Verbinski aboard to helm.

The story of Gambit is like the story of Deadpool, except Deadpool got made and was a huge hit, whereas Gambit… well, watch this space.

After first being announced at SDCC in 2015, the X-Men spinoff has been suffering a string of bad breaks, losing both previously announced directors Doug Liman and Rupert Wyatt.

Related: Channing Tatum to play merman in Disney’s gender-swapped Splash reboot

But now, Fox is in talks with A Cure for Wellness and Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy helmer Gore Verbinski to take the reins — and, as Collider notes, this is a good sign both in terms of the movie actually getting made, but for it being any good.

Much like Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum is an off-beat, generally likeable actor with the ability to do something really subversive (Magic Mike) but a tendency to fall into bland projects (The Vow).

For Gambit to be successful, they would definitely benefit from taking their cues from both Deadpool and Logan, and a more auteur-esque director like Gore Verbinski would definitely enable them to get creative.

Tatum insinuated as much at this year’s SDCC, telling Yahoo! News that they were actually “lucky” to be delayed.

“The X-Men movies and the superhero movies with Logan and Deadpool really broke down a lot of doors for us,” said Tatum (via Collider). “We were trying to do some things that we actually weren’t allowed to do, and they just smashed down the doors, so we’re giving it a bit of a rethink.”