Doug Liman To Climb Amazon's THE WALL Before Filming GAMBIT Later This Year

20th Century Fox's solo film based on the card-throwing mutant Gambit has experienced its share of ups and downs on its way to the big screen. Though it's been removed from the studio's release schedule, the project is still in the works with Channing Tatum attached to star and Doug Liman lined up to direct. Now THR reports that Reid Carolin, Tatum's producing partner who wrote Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL, is handling rewrites of the Gambit screenplay and the start of filming has been bumped to later this year.

Because of the delay, Liman (The Bourne Identity, Go, Edge of Tomorrow) is now in negotiations to direct a small-scale thriller called The Wall for Amazon Studios. The script hails from writer Dwain Worrell, and it marks the company's first spec script purchase. Here's the logline from when the project made The Black List in 2014:

A sniper and his spotter must kill and avoid being killed, separated from an enemy sniper by only a 16x6ft prayer wall.

Sounds like exactly the level of contained thriller that Liman could be able to feasibly knock out before he ramps back up on Gambit. Production on The Wall is slated to begin late this spring or early this summer. Meanwhile, Liman is in post-production on Mena, another thriller starring Tom Cruise and Domhnall Gleeson that will come out in 2017.