Channing Tatum's 'Gambit' Film set for October 2016

Hard to believe that when we say "next year" it means 2016, but it's time to start looking ahead to the movies that will be arriving then. Over at 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks, they're already announcing dates for some of the biggest films of 2016, while shifting around others. One of those will be Fox's X-men spinoff featuring the ragin' cajun, Gambit.

Get your pitchforks out now, True Believers, because the Gambit film starring Channing Tatum will open October 7th 2016. How exactly it will tie-in to next year's X-men: Apocalypse is still unclear but the character is expected to appear, especially since Josh Zetumer has a hand in writing both movies.

Michael Fassbender is set to star in the adaptation of hit video game Assassin's Creed, which will now open on December 7th 2016. He'll be rejoining his Macbeth director Justin Kurzel. What else? Hugh Jackman's long-developing P.T. Barnum biopic The Greatest Showman on Earth will pitch its tent on Christmas Day 2016; Funny or Die vet Jake Szymanski has a film titled Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates which is opening July 29th 2016. In 2017 we have the Rosamund Pike and Charlie Hunnam romance, The Mountain Between Us, opening on February 10th. Fox has also shifted a couple of major tentpole flicks, placing the hopeful Fantastic Four sequel on June 2nd 2017 (a little early, isn't it?) while setting the next Planet of the Apes film on July 14th.

And over at Universal they've dated the next Melissa McCarthy comedy, Michelle Darnell, for April 8th 2016. Directed by her husband Ben Falcone, the film has McCarthy as "a titan of industry who is sent to prison after she’s caught for insider trading.  When she emerges ready to rebrand herself as America’s latest sweetheart, not everyone she screwed over is so quick to forgive and forget." The film will take the date previously occupied by Clifford the Big Red Dog, which is now off the schedule.

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Rosamund Pike will Scale 'The Mountain Between Us' with Charlie Hunnam

The year of Rosamund Pike has finally arrived. The British actress who first caught our eye years ago as Bond girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day, has probably locked up some awards recognition for her crazy performance in Gone Girl. Lately she's been flexing different muscles in comedies (The World's End), action (Wrath of the Titans), and now we'll get to see her in the harrowing romance drama, The Mountain Between Us.

Pike will be joining Charlie Hunnam in the adaptation of Charles Martin's book, which follows "Ashley, a writer catching a flight from Salt Lake City and heading East for her wedding. Ben is a doctor returning from a medical conference. When their flight is cancelled due to a broken de-icer, the strangers agree to charter a ride, only to see the pilot suffer a heart attack and crash into a desolate snowy mountain region. He breaks ribs and she suffers a leg fracture. Fortunately, aside from a doctor he’s an avid climber, and as he struggles to get her down from the mountain in harsh weather, she begins to realize that maybe she was headed to marry the wrong guy."

This one has undergone a ton of changes over the last few months, so we'll see if the casting sticks. Margot Robbie and Michael Fassbender were originally set to be the romantic duo for Miss Bala director Gerardo Naranjo. All of them would eventually drop out, and now we have Oscar-nominated director Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) at the helm, with Hunnam and Pike the central couple. [Deadline]

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Charlie Hunnam Joins Margot Robbie in Romance 'The Mountain Between Us'

There have been some sweeping changes made to Fox's romance drama, The Mountain Between Us. Once set to star Michael Fassbender opposite Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street), with Gerardo Naranjo (Miss Bala) directing, the film has now undergone a seismic shift at the top. Both Fassbender and Naranjo are out, and while Robbie remains she'll be starring with Charlie Hunnam instead.

Hunnam has replaced Fassbender in the film, which will now be helmed by Academy Award-nominee Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now). Based on Charles Martin's book, which I've previously said sounds like the movie Six Days, Seven Nights, the story follows a doctor and soon-to-be-married woman who are stranded on an island after their charter flight crashes. Trapped in the wilderness they must survive the harsh elements and terrain, falling in love along the way.

So this may not be the film it once was without Fassbender, but Abu-Assad is a great director, and nobody's going to complain if they have to stare at Hunnam and Robbie for a couple of hours. [Deadline]

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