Ripley’s believe it or not, The New Mutants is finally coming to theaters, where it’ll be shown on screens, audiences will watch it and hopefully enjoy the long-awaited and delayed X-Men horror movie. Directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars), The New Mutants has been plagued by delays and rumors. Finally, however, the movie will speak for itself come this April. To promote the new release date, Disney has released a new trailer.
The Trailer
How long has The New Mutants been delayed? To give some perspective, the first and last trailer came out well over two years ago. The new trailer has the same tone and emo vibe to it, promising a comic book more modest in scale. It’s always nice to see a trailer for a comic book movie that isn’t blowing up the world:
Why the Wait?
After a few delays, Disney bought Fox and inherited Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants. The last X-Men movie was a critical and commercial failure and considered an unsatisfying end to the long-running franchise, which to be fair, was in bad shape already thanks to Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse and his garish aesthetic and storytelling choices, but I digress. The New Mutants, thankfully, has nothing to do with Singer or the series’ past. It’s a new story in this universe.
Boone’s Cut
There were stories and rumors about The New Mutants undergoing reshoots to make it scarier or add new characters. There was talk of debates over the tone of the movie, with Fox initially not fully onboard with the horror tone but then changing their mind. It was a bit of a mess, but at the end of the day, co-writer and director Josh Boone’s cut is the one coming to theaters. The director recently confirmed on his Instagram page that his cut of The New Mutants will play in theaters, and if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be promoting it. After everything he went through on the movie, fingers crossed audiences will embrace his work and finished film. Meanwhile, Boone is working on another big-name property, Stephen King’s The Stand, which he’s filming as a miniseries with an all-star cast.
Sequels?
After everything The New Mutants went through, it’s hard to imagine sequels happening in the future. A new X-Men horror franchise, however, was Boone’s original plan. Not a bad way to inject some fresh new blood in the now-dead franchise, too.
Over two years ago, Boone revealed his ideas for the future of The New Mutants (Source: IGN):
“These are all going to be horror movies, and they’re all going to be their own distinct horror movies. This is certainly the “rubber-reality” supernatural horror movie. The next one will be a completely different kind of horror movie. Our take was just imagine the horror genre through comic book movies and make each one its own distinct sort of horror movie. Drawing from the big events we love in the comics.”
Disney sure does love money, so if The New Mutants comes out a big hit, maybe Boone’s plan is possible. There was speculation the studio would release the movie on Hulu or Disney+, but they stuck to a theatrical release.
The Official Synopsis
20th Century Fox in association with Marvel Entertainment presents The New Mutants, an original horror thriller set in an isolated hospital where a group of young mutants is being held for psychiatric monitoring. When strange occurrences begin to take place, both their new mutant abilities and their friendships will be tested as they battle to try and make it out alive.
In theaters April 3, 2020.
