Gore Verbinski seems like a solid choice to direct Gambit, to me, simply because Jack Sparrow has a ton of the same appeal as a well-written Gambit does. I remember watching the first couple Pirates movies and getting a pretty strong Gambit vibe from a lot of Jack's characterization.
Here's the thing about Gambit...
At his best, Gambit is a very complex guy. He's by default more morally compromised than most superheroes, with his superheroing colored by his life as a thief, and his thieving colored by his life as a superhero. His sense of pragmatism and conscience are constantly at odds with one another and always bleed into each other to some extent, and his power set, when used creativity, wonderfully compliments this. He has his own corner of the X-Men universe and a life away from them that has the potential to make him more interesting as a solo character than many characters. He has a bit more range in terms of story tone and genre that a lot of characters do, as well.
The first half of Fabian Nicieza's '99 Gambit series made a pretty convincing argument for all of this. His 2012 solo was also a really fun read in spite of being horribly-timed within the larger direction of the X-Men books. X-Men #33 also shows how complex of a guy he is, and might be the best single Gambit issue written.
At his worst, Gambit is a walking accent that just throws cards around while making puns and having lame pickup lines while also perpetually pining for Rogue.
The latter is the Gambit that has been in the mainline X-Men books for well over a decade, now, with the actual interesting version of Gambit being relegated to satellite titles that got minimal promotion, all while he's been slagged off by creators frequently.
In spite of being underused, misused, and sabotaged, Gambit still has fans hungering for him to become relevant again. It's absurd they're still going, at this point. It's absurd I'm even writing this post right now, but here we are. There's still a not-insignificant group of comics fans, myself included, that believe in the potential of the character. There's something there at the core of the character that's made him endure in spite of it all, or else this movie wouldn't even be a discussion.
Sorry to ramble on, but I'll sum it up by saying yeah, Gambit kinda sucks right now, but I think a good Gambit movie would surprise a lot of people who are underestimating how good the character actually can be and has been, and it would definitely do a lot to reinvigorate him in the comics. I strongly believe Gambit's best stories have yet to be written, but he can be a strong enough character and has a strong enough mythology around him for plenty of great stories to happen.
