Lizzy Caplan was surprised when Channing Tatum's Gambit movie got scrapped

Lizzy Caplan found it "kind of odd" when Channing Tatum's Gambit movie was axed.

The Mean Girls actress joined the superhero project in late 2017 and was set to play the female lead opposite Tatum as the card-throwing mutant, who has the ability to charge inanimate objects with energy.

In an interview with Business Insider, Caplan admitted she was puzzled by the film being effectively canned a couple of years later because they had "a really cool idea" and were close to production.

"It's kind of odd that it got scrapped. Those movies don't seem to ever get scrapped, but it did," she said. "We got down the road, we were gonna shoot it. I think there was a start date. I had had meetings with Channing, and there were a couple different... we had a director, then we didn't, but I had multiple meetings with Channing and the other producers.

"They wanted to do, like, a '30s kind of screwball romantic comedy set in that world, which would have been really fun."

However, the Zero Day star confessed that she "had a lot of stress" about doing a superhero film at the time and is now "pretty OK" with not starring in one.

Tatum spent years trying to get a Gambit movie off the ground and the project was axed amid Disney's acquisition of Fox in 2019.

However, the Magic Mike star finally got a chance to play the character, real name Remy LeBeau, in last year's Deadpool & Wolverine.

After the film's release, he wrote on social media, "I thought I had lost Gambit forever. But (Ryan Reynolds) fought for me and Gambit. I will owe him probably forever. Cause I'm not sure how I could ever do something that would be equal to what this has meant to me. I love ya buddy...I'm so grateful to be in this movie."

Tatum hopes his popular appearance in the movie encourages Marvel bosses to revisit a standalone Gambit film.