It seems like the X-Men standalone movie centered around the ragin’ Cajun, Gambit, has been in development for ever. In fact, we had kind of assumed it was dead, and the studios were just waiting for us to stop asking. But it’s still happening despite multiple delays, and star Channing Tatum has offered an update.

Speaking to HeyUGuys, which is apparently not a Goonies fansite, Tatum said that the delays have actually helped the movie.

“I think we got lucky,” Tatum said. “We hit some setbacks and it was all for a good reason. We were trying to do something completely different. We were trying to do something that this genre of movie hasn’t seen before. We kept running into the same problems, and then Deadpool and Logan came through and kicked the doors down. Now we’re getting to do some of the things we’ve always wanted to do with the script. We’ve just sort of started over.

More stumbles than a DC movie

Gambit has had so much trouble making it into production, you’d think it was a DC movie. The movie was originally to be directed by Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt. He left over creative differences. Bourne Identity director Doug Liman took his place, and Fox rescheduled the movie. Liman then left in August 2016 because he “wasn’t feeling the script.” Right now, no particular director is attached to the movie. Maybe it’ll be the first movie with a directorial credit that reads, “Studio Executives.” Either way, the movie’s still on – a good sign for X-Men fans.

As for Gambit himself, the character first popped up in the comics in the 1990s and showed up on the fan-favorite X-Men cartoon (I’ll pause while you hum the theme) shortly after. He has the ability to imbue any object he likes with kinetic energy, causing the item to explode on impact. He most frequently chooses a deck of playing cards, which he throws with deadly accuracy, for this ability. He’s one of the shadier characters in the X-Men roster, with a past as a thief and a connection to Mr. Sinister, a character first referenced in the final scenes of X-Men: Apocalypse. Whether or not Fox will use that to connect Gambit and the next X-Men movies is unknown.

Gambit doesn’t have anything resembling a release date or time frame right now, and it probably won’t for a while; the best you can do right now is catch Tatum in director Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky and watch the upcoming glut of X-mutant movies  and shows – Deadpool 2, New Mutants, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Legion season 2, and The Gifted – hitting theaters and televisions in 2018.