The New Mutants is an upcoming American horror film in the superhero genre, based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name and distributed by 20th Century Studios. It is intended to be an installment of the X-Men film series. The film was directed by Josh Boone from a screenplay by himself and Knate Lee and stars Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga. In the film, a group of young mutants held in a secret facility fight to save themselves.
Boone and Lee first began work on the film after Boone completed The Fault in Our Stars (2014). The pair pitched a potential film trilogy to X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, and in May 2015 were officially signed on to the project. Taylor-Joy and Williams were rumored to be cast in March 2016 and were confirmed over a year later when the rest of the cast filled out.
Filming took place in Boston, Massachusetts, from July to September 2017, primarily at Medfield State Hospital, with an April 2018 release in mind. The film was then delayed while reshoots were planned and Disney began the process of acquiring production company 20th Century Fox. After the acquisition was completed, Boone returned to work on the film, and it was completed without reshoots in March 2020.
The New Mutants is scheduled to be released in the United States on August 28, 2020. The film was originally intended for release in April 2018 and has had several additional release dates since it was first announced. Originally planned as the first in a trilogy of films, Boone has said that was unlikely to happen due to Disney's Marvel Studios gaining control of the characters.
After completing work on the 2014 film The Fault in Our Stars for 20th Century Fox, director Josh Boone created a comic book with his childhood best friend Knate Lee using panels from Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz's New Mutants comics to illustrate what a potential film trilogy adapting those comics would be like. The pair had been fans of the characters growing up, with Boone calling the stories "really dark, interesting, and different from the typical X-Men stories that we had read".
Boone and Lee took the comic to Simon Kinberg, one of the producers of the X-Men film series, who "really liked it". In May 2015, Fox finalized a deal to have Boone direct The New Mutants, from a script by himself and Lee, with Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner producing. The film would be a standalone spinoff film, expanding the universe of the X-Men franchise.
While working on the first draft of the script, Boone sent it and his ideas for the film to Sienkiewicz, who thought Boone "had it figured out" and was not just copying the comics. Updating the status of the film in March 2016, Kinberg said that Boone and Lee were working on the script, and that, like Deadpool (2016), the film would be different from the core X-Men films, "maybe not as different as Deadpool, but it has its own unique, original voice to it".
Kinberg said that the film would have a young adult "vibe" and that there was potential for characters seen in previous films to appear, namely Warpath, Sunspot, and Professor X, who all have ties to the New Mutants in the comics. Also at that time, it was reported that Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy were being looked at to star in the film as Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane and Illyana Rasputin / Magik, respectively.
The rest of the title team was expected to consist of the characters Sam Guthrie / Cannonball, Roberto da Costa / Sunspot, and Danielle Moonstar / Mirage. Sunspot previously appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, portrayed by Adan Canto, who was not confirmed to be returning for the new film. James McAvoy, who portrayed Professor X in several previous X-Men films, was said to have a significant role in this one, alongside Alexandra Shipp, who was expected to reprise her role of Storm from X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).
In May 2016, Kinberg confirmed that the script included Professor X, and stated his hope for filming to start at the beginning of 2017. By that August, the titular team's roster had expanded to include the character Warlock, while Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber—who worked with Boone writing The Fault in Our Stars were working on a new draft of the script while Boone and Lee were busy on another project.
In November, the report of Williams and Taylor-Joy's casting was believed to be accurate, and Nat Wolff was being looked at for the role of Cannonball after working with Boone on The Fault in Our Stars. The character Demon Bear was set as the film's main antagonist, with the project aiming for more of a "'Stephen King meets John Hughes'-style horror movie".
Boone soon noted that the Demon Bear was a very personal villain for him as a child, as he "was raised by very religious parents. They were Evangelical Southern Baptists and they believed in the rapture; they believed the devil was real; they believed in demons.
The film had entered pre-production in Boston, Massachusetts, by April 2017, in preparation for filming to begin in that city. Location scouting took place, including at Medfield State Hospital which was previously used as a filming location for Shutter Island (2010).
Fox scheduled New Mutants for an April 13, 2018 release. Several weeks later, the studio officially announced the casting of Taylor-Joy and Williams and was "making serious efforts to find ethnically appropriate actors" for the rest of the cast, searching for South American and Native American actors to respectively play Sunspot and Moonstar.
By then, McAvoy was no longer slated to appear in the film; Wolff was no longer in the running to portray Cannonball; and Karen Rosenfelt was producing alongside Kinberg, who ultimately spent much of production focused on making Dark Phoenix (2019).
At the end of May, Henry Zaga was expected to be cast as Sunspot, and Rosario Dawson—who also portrays the Marvel character Claire Temple across the various Marvel Netflix television series was in talks to join the film as Cecilia Reyes, a mentor to the titular team.
It was explained that McAvoy was no longer involved due to Professor X being written out of the script with further drafts, and Shipp's Storm had likewise been written out of the film. Additionally, Boone confirmed that the film would be "a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe. There are no costumes. There are no supervillains. We're trying to do something very, very different.
Boone had previously stated that he does not like horror films, except for "classic ones" such as The Exorcist (1973), Rosemary's Baby (1968), and The Shining (1980), but was looking to "pioneer and champion doing prestige versions of horror films" based on his love for horror novels such as King's works. At the end of the month, Charlie Heaton was in talks to portray Cannonball.
Zaga, Dawson, and Heaton were confirmed to have been cast at the start of June, and newcomer Blu Hunt was cast as Moonstar after an extensive and challenging international search that prioritized "ethnic authenticity". The character was believed to be central to the Demon Bear storyline that the film focuses on.
At the end of that month, Dawson exited the film, and Alice Braga was cast as Reyes in her place. The final shooting script for the film included contributions from Josh Zetumer, Chad and Carey Hayes, and Seth Grahame-Smith, along with a six-person "writer's room" that Fox hired to generate ideas for the film and also "tear apart the script and put it back together".
Throughout the development process on the film, the script evolved from the "full horror" film that Boone and Lee initially wanted to make, and which Fox was resistant to, to a compromise version without "excessive blood and scares" and more "young adult"-focused. Boone created storyboards with artist Ashley R. Guillory to plan out all of the shots before filming
Principal photography began on July 10, 2017, in Boston, under the working title Growing Pains. Peter Deming served as cinematographer for the film. The majority of the film was shot on location at Medfield State Hospital, where Boone said every crew member had "weird things happen to them".
Boone wanted to use practical effects as much as possible to make the film feel like the horror movies that he grew up with. For example, he had actors push on sheets of spandex to create the effect of figures pushing through the walls of a room, a technique originated by Wes Craven. Ten percent of the film used a green screen.
On the film's set, Boone explained that the script had been re-written following the failure of Apocalypse to be set during modern-day rather than in the 1980s, which is why Professor X and Storm were removed from the film's story. Boone felt the film was not largely affected by this change since its confined location and lack of technology meant "it might as well be the 80s in terms of the setting. It didn't change our story very much.
Fox chairman and CEO Stacey Snider elaborated on the film's setting, describing it as a Breakfast Club detention crossed with a Cuckoo's Nest institution. She described the film's genre as "a haunted-house movie with a bunch of hormonal teenagers. We haven't seen a superhero movie whose genre is more like The Shining than 'we're teenagers let's save the world.
Boone added that he was influenced by A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) explained that Warlock had been deemed too expensive to portray on the film's budget, but could appear in a sequel and clarified that the Demon Bear would not be the main antagonist of the film, but that character would appear and the film was "very much inspired" by the comic book story arc in which that character is the main villain.
Filming ended on September 16, 2017. The film's principal photography was described as "stressful" for Boone, who felt "a bit neutered" during the process due to having to tone down the film from his original "full horror" ideas
The New Mutants Cast
Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane
- A Scottish mutant who can turn into a wolf and is struggling to reconcile this with her religious beliefs. Williams was convinced to join the film after discussing the character's religious background with director Josh Boone, who identified with the comic book character due to his own strict religious upbringing.
Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin / Magik
- A Russian mutant with sorcery powers, she can manifest the Soulsword and use teleportation discs to travel. Illyana is the sister of Colossus, a member of the X-Men seen in previous films in the series. Her purple dragon companion from the comic books, Lockheed, also appears in the film.
Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie / Cannonball: An American mutant who can propel himself into the air, and is invulnerable while doing so.
Alice Braga as Cecilia Reyes: A mentor to the group and a medical doctor who can generate protective fields around herself.
Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar / Mirage:
- A Native American mutant who can create illusions based on the fears and desires of other people. The film includes a love story between Rahne and Dani which Williams felt was a natural extension of the comic book characters having a telepathic connection. Boone described this as "the spine and focus" of the film's "character-driven stuff".
Henry Zaga as Roberto da Costa / Sunspot: A Brazilian mutant who can manipulate solar energy.
The New Mutants Release Date
The New Mutants is scheduled to be released in the United States on August 28, 2020. It was originally set to be released on April 13, 2018, before being delayed to February 22, 2019, to avoid Deadpool 2, and then to August 2, 2019, to avoid Dark Phoenix.
It was delayed to April 3, 2020, by Disney after that studio acquired Fox, and then removed from Disney's schedule in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Disney rescheduled the film for August 28, 2020, two months later. The various delays have led to several online commentators referring to the film as "cursed" and lamenting its bad luck.
The New Mutants Background Music
Nate Walcott and Mike Mogis were confirmed in December 2017 to be composing the score for the film, having worked with Boone on his previous films. In May 2018, Marilyn Manson announced that his cover of the song "Cry Little Sister" originally written for the film The Lost Boys (1987) by Gerard McMahon which Manson debuted during his Heaven Upside Down tour, had been recorded specifically for the New Mutants soundtrack.
In February 2020, Mark Snow was revealed to have composed the score for the final version of the film, though additional music composed by Walcott and Mogis was still set to be used in the soundtrack.
The New Mutants Trailer
The review of the film will be coming soon
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