If you were holding your breath for that Channing Tatum "Gambit" movie, go ahead and exhale.

Director Rupert Wyatt, who was set to direct the X-Men spinoff, says that Fox was thisclose to beginning production on a "Gambit" movie. That is, until Josh Trank's disastrous "Fantastic Four" remake crashed and burned.

"We were close, I believe 10 weeks away. It simply came down to budget. There was not enough," Wyatt told Comics Beat. "'Fantastic Four' had been released by Fox a month before and had not gone well for them, so our budget was slashed quite considerably. The inevitable, from my perspective was, 'Well then we need to rewrite the script to tailor to our budget,' but we were too close to a start date for Fox to really want to go there, so unfortunately, it just didn’t work out."

With Fox being bought by Disney,  do the film's chances improve or disappear completely?

"All I know is Channing had a really, really wonderful idea for what that film could and should be," Wyatt said. "I know he and [his producing partner Reid Carolin] are still plugging away at it, so I hope in the new Disney era, that then they get to make it."

Wyatt's films include 2011's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." His new alien thriller "Captive State" opens Friday.

[Via The Playlist]