FOX’s X-Men spin-off film, The New Mutants has one of the most complicated histories of any comic book film to come out in the last several years. The movie was slated to come out more than a year ago, but was deemed to be so bad that it required rumored reshoots of nearly the entire film. It turns out that those re-shoots may have never even happened. Adding to the drama was the lackluster end of FOX’s X-Men cinematic universe with the release of Dark Phoenix and Disney’s acquisition of the studio.
When Disney took over, it was assumed that the trouble film, which stars Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Charlie Heaton as Cannonball, Henry Zaga as Sunspot, Blu Hunt as Mirage, and Alice Braga as Dr. Cecilia Reye, would either be shelved or pushed off on a streaming service like Hulu. Last week, director Josh Boone surprised comic book fans by announcing that we’d not only be getting a trailer today, but that the movie is his original vision for the story and not something that’s been monkeyed with over the last 18 months.
Now that we’ve got the trailer, we can say that it’s definitely different than any of the X-Men films that came before it. It seems to hold true to Boone’s stated vision of the film as a horror film. Now the question is whether this is just a standalone film, or if it can capture enough attention that Kevin Feige uses it as a backdoor way to introduce a new Mutant universe to the MCU>
Let’s face it, the film, slated for an April release, doesn’t come with high expectations. If it’s getting released, that’s happening with the blessing of Feige. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if he gave it a green light because he sees potential in it or if he wants to burn the last vestiges of the FOX X-Men universe to the ground before he starts over from scratch.
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 Directed by: Josh Boone Screenplay by: Josh Boone & Knate Lee Produced by: Simon Kinberg, p.g.a., Karen Rosenfelt, p.g.a., Lauren Shuler Donner Cast: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, Henry Zaga