The New Mutants has gone down a bumpy road.
Fans weren't sure what to make of the X-Men superhero/horror hybrid when the first trailer
dropped in October 2017.
To comics fans, it didn't look like the stories they remembered.
The unfortunate flop Dark Phoenix brought a lot of doubt into fans' minds, and rumors
about what Disney's acquisition of Fox would mean for the fledgling spin-off franchise
began swirling.
Many questioned whether the movie would ever see the light of day.
Well, it's been over two years since the first trailer was released.
There have been lots of delays, but The New Mutants is finally almost here.
The film's characters are based on the X-Men's junior team, first introduced in 1982's original
graphic novel The New Mutants.
The team later enjoyed its own ongoing series, which was revived in late 2019, and most of
the characters have remained mainstays in the Marvel Comics universe ever since as members
of other mutant teams and in some cases, even as Avengers.
With The New Mutants fast approaching and with its production woes proving to be more
public than maybe the filmmakers and studio would like we thought it would be good to
separate what we know from rumor.
Here's what we can tell you about the New Mutants release date, the cast, the plot,
and a few others things we're guessing you're curious about.
Considering the uncertainty that's surrounded the production of The New Mutants, we're assuming
it's a bit of unintentional irony that the movie will finally hit theaters two days after
April Fool's Day Friday, April 3, 2020.
"Well that doesn't mean anything!"
"Are you kidding?
That's very significant!"
It's been a long road securing that 2020 release date.
The first New Mutants trailer emerged in October 2017, announcing a release date of April 13,
2018, which would have put it on theater screens two weeks before Avengers: Infinity War.
Yet, the latter film and its sequel 2019's Avengers: Endgame would prove to be insanely
successful pop culture landmarks without a hint of New Mutants anywhere in sight.
The New Mutants' first delay pushed it back to February 2019, but in March 2018 a month
before its original release date it was announced the film had been pushed back again to August
2019.
Finally, in May 2019, Disney announced The New Mutants would bring the X-Men's junior
team to the big screen on April 3, 2020... and that they really, really meant it this
time.
"What can you tell us about The New Mutants?"
"...That, uh…
It's coming your way at some point."
Much speculation has surrounded The New Mutants' massive delay, spending two years on the shelf
in a market that has been more than kind to superhero movies.
No one can blame you for wondering exactly why it's taken so long to get Marvel's younger
mutants to the big screen.
"Where are the mutants."
"Take another step, I'm gonna put you down."
"Where are the mutants."
"Put that man down or we will open fire!"
In January 2018, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Fox had moved The New Mutants to February
2019 in order to give Deadpool 2 whose release was moved up to May 2018 some elbow room.
After Dark Phoenix reshoots delayed that film's release to February 2019, New Mutants was
once again bumped back to make room for the 12th chapter of the flagship X-Men film franchise,
this time to August 2019.
Throughout most of the film's delays, the subject of reshoots kept popping up.
In March 2018, director Josh Boone was said to be reshooting up to half the movie, possibly
even adding new characters.
Yet by March 2019, THR was reporting that reshoots hadn't happened, and furthermore,
weren't planned.
A couple of months later, producer Simon Kinberg asserted that reshoots were going to happen,
but that the schedules of all the actors created a difficult juggling act.
In December 2019, after the final release date was announced, director Josh Boone said
the finally finished New Mutants was actually very close to his original vision of the project,
and his comments have left fans wondering whether or not the long-reported reshoots
ever actually happened.
"Doesn't make any sense, does it?"
Perhaps the best known members of The New Mutants' principal cast are Maisie Williams,
who played Arya Stark in HBO's Game of Thrones, and Charlie Heaton, best known as social outcast
Jonathan Beyers on Netflix's Stranger Things.
Williams plays Rahne Sinclair, a.k.a. Wolfsbane — a mutant with abilities that mimic the
powers of werewolves.
Heaton is Sam Guthrie, better known as Cannonball.
Guthrie is often portrayed as one of the team's leaders, and in the comics has the ability
to blast himself into the air at unbelievable speeds, remaining completely invulnerable
while in flight.
As for the rest of the team, there's Ilyana Rasputin, a.k.a. Magik, played by Anya Taylor-Joy.
Magik has often been one of the edgier mutant heroes in the comics, sometimes going into
the same dark anti-human territory, where we find extremists like Magneto.
"Ilyana?"
"I killed 18 men.
One… by… one."
Henry Zaga plays Robert da Costa (a.k.a. Sunspot), though this isn't the character's first big
screen appearance.
Adan Canto has a small role as Sunspot in 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Rounding out the lead cast is Blu Hunt, who plays the illusion-conjuring Dani Moonstar,
a.k.a. Mirage.
Joining the New Mutants is Dr. Cecilia Reyes, played by Alice Braga.
If the film follows the comics closely enough, Dr. Reyes may prove to be a mutant just like
her patients.
In the comics, Dr. Reyes generates a biological force field which she can use to defend herself
or to form shapes which she can use as weapons.
Along with the extensive reshoots originally planned, some reports indicated that The New
Mutants would add a new character during its time in post-production hell.
ScreenRant speculated the newb might be Warlock.
In the comics, Warlock is a techno-organic alien who can shapeshift into just about anything,
including once into the famous starship Enterprise.
Director Josh Boone reportedly wanted Warlock in the film, and said he planned to introduce
the hero in a potential New Mutants sequel.
Later in March 2018, The Tracking Board reported something very different.
According to the site, Jon Hamm was set to appear in a New Mutants post-credits tease
as the villain Mister Sinister.
This would have connected back to previous references to the villain in movies like Deadpool
2 and X-Men: Apocalypse.
This idea was eventually scrapped, after which reports emerged that Antonio Banderas had
been added to the cast in the role of a villain whose identity if he's even actually in the
movie remains a mystery.
If The Tracking Board's report is accurate, then it leaves the question of why Mister
Sinister was cut from the film.
There's been no firm word, though some have speculated that Disney's acquisition of Fox
is mainly to blame, and that Marvel Studios wanted all references to early X-Men films
cut from the film.
Of course, we should mention that by March 2018, when the Hamm/Sinister report surfaced,
Disney's acquisition of Fox hadn't been finalized.
As of now, we really don't know what happened.
We don't know a lot of plot specifics for The New Mutants, though we do know some interesting
details.
In 2017, Entertainment Weekly said a source close to the production described it this
way:
"Held in a secret facility against their will, five new mutants have to battle the dangers
of their powers, as well as the sins of their past.
They aren't out to save the world they're just trying to save themselves."
That seems to jive with what we've seen in The New Mutants trailers.
In both the first teaser from 2017 and the most recent trailer, we see the mutants in
a hospital where Dani is subjected to painful tests, and all of the heroes react to some
kind of unnamed supernatural horror.
In the newer trailer, we see Dani finding what appears to be a force field on the edge
of the facility's property.
As Ilyana tells her,
"This isn't a hospital — it's a cage."
There's also strong evidence suggesting the early New Mutants villain, the Demon Bear,
will feature in the film.
The villain is known to feed off the negative emotions of its victims, which could connect
to a moment in the newest trailer.
"This place takes your greatest fear and makes you live through it until it kills you."
The fright-heavy first teaser for The New Mutants dropped in October 2017, and at a
glance, you'd hardly know the film had anything to do with Marvel superhero characters.
The more recent trailer that debuted in January 2020 isn't that much different from the original
in tone but we do get to see more shots of the characters using their mutant abilities.
We see Rahne beginning to change into her wolf form, as well as a brief shot of Roberto
in his Sunspot identity.
There are a couple of shots of Sam's powers appearing to emerge.
Finally, the trailer ends with Illyana, dropping from one of her teleportation discs and holding
a bright sword, her eyes glowing with similar power.
Dr. Cecelia Reyes spends a good amount of time in the most recent trailer seemingly
trying to figure out the mutant powers of Dani Moonstar.
We can't say yet what will remain similar between the comics and the film, but in the
source material, Dani's main power is related to her codename Mirage.
Dani has the ability to reach into the thoughts and emotions of others and produce hologram-like
images based on them.
She eventually even learns to weaponize her abilities by stunning her enemies with arrows
she creates using her psychic powers.
She's also shown the ability to create strong empathic connections with animals, which has
helped her communicate with Wolfsbane in the latter's wolf form.
In the comics, Dani has another set of abilities that have nothing to do with her mutant powers.
Because of a classic 1985 crossover that played out between New Mutants Special Edition #1
and Uncanny X-Men Annual Vol. 9 and took place mostly in Asgard, Dani gained Valkyrie abilities,
including the power to foresee someone's death.
While she wasn't born with these powers, they've become important parts of the character, and
would have obvious potential in a horror film.
We'll be curious to see if director Josh Boone has chosen to incorporate them or not.
Will The New Mutants be part of the MCU?
Most likely, absolutely not but we're not going to be 100% sure until the movie is actually
out.
Early in January 2020, reports indicated that The New Mutants would be considered part of
the shared MCU narrative because of a description in Disney's own D23 newsletter.
The email newsletter touted The New Mutants as a, quote, "seriously electrifying new addition
to the Marvel Cinematic Universe."
Not long after readers took note of that specific wording, however, Disney removed the MCU mention
from the newsletter and deleted the article from its website.
Still, there was no indication of whether the mention of the MCU was removed because
it was inaccurate or because it was something Marvel Studios didn't want unveiled.
The following day, IGN reported that it could confirm that The New Mutants would not be
part of the MCU, however the article announcing this confirmation does not mention any sources
not even an unnamed one.
The only proof it presents is that the original D23 article has been removed... which on its
own doesn't prove anything.
Regardless, it would seem very strange for Marvel Studios to choose to introduce the
X-universe into its narrative with a story conceived of and created by a team outside
Marvel Studios.
So while we can't say with 100% certainty that New Mutants isn't in the MCU, probably
don't expect Wolfsbane and Cannonball to be hanging out with Groot and Rocket anytime
soon.
Watching the New Mutants trailers doesn't feel all that different from watching an advertisement
for a horror movie, because that's exactly what The New Mutants is meant to be.
Director Josh Boone, a self-described Stephen King fan obsessed with both horror stories
and Marvel Comics, has created a story about heroes who, according to EW's unnamed source,
"aren't out to save the world they're just trying to save themselves."
A month before the first trailer dropped, then-CEO and Chairman of 20th Century Fox
Stacey Snider described New Mutants in an interview with Variety as a, quote, "haunted
house movie with a bunch of hormonal teenagers."
She also added that it felt more like The Shining than any contemporary superhero fare.
Likewise, New Mutants star Charlie Heaton described the movie as "full-fledged horror"
in April 2018.
So, yeah, judging by those quotes and the trailers, we feel pretty confident predicting
New Mutants will be richer in the screams and poorer in, say, dancing baby trees or
long lost princes who talk to fish.
It'll be tough to list all the ways The New Mutants strays from the source material until
the film is released, but from what we know of the plot and what we've seen in the trailers,
there are a few obvious (and important) differences.
First and foremost, in the film these young mutants are imprisoned in a secret facility,
while the New Mutants of the comics first come together of their own free will recruited
by Professor X.
This helps to explain why the mutants in the film are without the team's signature yellow-and-black
jumpsuits.
While the heroes of the comic were often concerned with moving out from the shadow of the older
X-Men, the mutants in the film don't seem to have any connection to the X-Men at all,
beyond being mutants.
One of the more interesting questions is how the characters' powers will be portrayed.
The comic book versions of two of The New Mutants' characters Ilyana and Dani draw more
upon the mystical world for their powers than the average mutant.
The most recent trailer shows Ilyana wielding her Soulsword, but it isn't clear yet if this
is meant to be part of the abilities she was born with or, as it is in the comics, produced
by magic.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite movies and TV shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.