Gore Verbinski, the director of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, is reportedly (via Deadline) nearing a deal to direct 20th Century Fox's Gambit film. A spinoff of the studio's X-Men films, Gambit is to star Channing Tatum as the titular mutant.

Recently, X-Men franchise producer Hutch Parker and Tatum himself confirmed Gambit was still happening, even though its yet to have a full cast, production start date or firm script in place -- though, with the addition of Verbinski, the film could now be in a better place.

Last month, Tatum revealed that the project is starting from scratch. “We lit a fuse on the first one and just blew it completely out of the water,” he said. “I think we got lucky – we got hit with 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.”

RELATED: Rumored Gambit Movie Plot Details Include Classic X-Men Foe

“Now we’re really getting to do some of the things we’ve always wanted to do with the script – we’ve just sort of started over.”

Just last week, rumored plot details emerged for the film, which was originally based on a treatment by the character's co-creator, Chris Claremont. The details hinted that the movie will be the Ocean’s 11 of comic book movies, with Gambit embroiled in heists over two periods of time. The movie will reportedly explore his comic book origins in the Guild of Thieves and the war between his LeBeau clan and the Boudreaux family, which his love interest Bella Donna belongs to. It will then jump forward to Gambit being hired by none other than Mister Sinister aka Nathaniel Essex to steal a mysterious trunk that was stolen by the Boudreaux clan, which will of course bring back demons of his past.

Gambit doesn't have a release date.