ARTNEWSPRESS: The superhero horror movie was originally set for an April 2018 debut. Two years later, it’s finally coming to theaters.
It was October 2017 when the first New Mutants trailer arrived. Then everything changed.
The film, based on the X-Men comics of the same name and starring Game of Thrones veteran Maisie Williams, was delayed multiple times amid rumblings about possible script reworks and reshoots. As Disney purchased Fox, the studio bumped the title even further back. This year, at long last, a fresh trailer arrives to confirm The New Mutants will finally see the light of day in theaters — and not on the Disney+ streaming platform as some fans feared.
Director Josh Boone (CBS All Access’s The Stand) previously told EW that he set out with writer Knate Lee to make “a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe.” Fox, in an updated description of the film, pegs it as “an original horror thriller.”
Inspired by Bill Sienkiewicz’s New Mutants comics published in the ’80s — the “Stephen King meets John Hughes” series, as Boone described it — the film sets five mutant teenagers in the confines of a secret psychiatric facility. Placed there against their will for monitoring, they face the sins of their past when strange, seemingly supernatural occurrences emerge. The results look like a haunted house but with comic book heroes.
Williams stars as Wolfsbane, while Glass and The Witch star Anya Taylor-Joy plays Magik (sword and all!), Stranger Things‘ Charlie Heaton plays Canonball, Looking for Alaska actor Henry Zaga plays Sunspot, and Another Life‘s Blu Hunt plays Danielle Moonstar. Also glimpsed in the new trailer is another key figure from the comics: the Demon Bear. Boone and Lee tap into Sienkiewicz’s Demon Bear Saga as inspiration for this film and the titular beastie finally shows its face.
Reshoots had been mentioned to the press multiple times over the past few years, the last we heard coming from X-Men franchise producer Simon Kinberg, who said they would happen in 2019. However, when Boone announced the New Mutants trailer reveal date last week, a fan asked on Instagram if we can expect to see his original version of the movie that he shot. “I wouldn’t be promoting it here if it wasn’t,” he responded.
The New Mutants will now (officially!) premiere in theaters on April 3.
https://EW.com
NICK ROMANO
