‘The New Mutants’ May Not Have Reshoots After All
The New Mutants has become something of a joke among comic book movie fans due to the studio’s decision to delay the movie not once, but twice after releasing the first trailer, with the new release date moved over a year later in order to get the cast the time to balance their busy schedules with reshoots. Now, the situation is even more ridiculous, as Fox have decided that the film is fine as-is and won’t need any reshoots.
To recap on the situation behind The New Mutants, the story of the film’s many delays starts all the way back to 2018, a few months after the release of the first trailer. While director Josh Boone was apparently satisfied with the film, the executives at Fox determined that the movie needed to dial up the scare factor before releasing to a general audience, so the intended April 13, 2018 release was pushed back all the way to February 22, 2019. Shortly after this delay was announced, Fox decided to stretch things out even more by placing the movie’s release date to August 2, 2019.
And now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it seems like Boone ultimately won out and the reshoots are off:
“What’s happening with The New Mutants? It’s easy to forget, but, Dark Phoenix is not technically Fox’s last X-Men movie. The studio has director Josh Boone’s New Mutants dated for Aug. 2. The film was supposed to open in April 2018… And then it was pushed to February 2019, only to be pushed back again to August. Will it ever see the light of day under the Disney regime? (Likely yes.) Will it make it to theaters? (Umm…) Well, will it at least make it to Disney+ (Sounds like a safe bet.) But it still has reshoots to do, right? (None planned so far but things seem to be in the hands of Boone, say sources.)
Fox probably could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had been more trusting of their director, but for whatever reason, the project got delayed significantly. Said delays may have hurt the film in the long run, given that fan excitement is shifting away toward the old X-Men continuity and more toward their inevitable integration with the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that the Disney-Fox merger is almost complete. Both this and Dark Phoenix appear to be victims of bad timing, for different reasons that are more the fault of corporate dealings than any creative decisions.
I will say one thing: it’s not likely to hit Disney+ if it does go directly to streaming. It sounds like the content of the film is either “hard” PG-13 or R-rated, and Disney want Disney+ to be a family-friendly platform. So it’s more likely to go to Hulu, Disney’s designated platform for more adult-skewing works, if it does become a streaming exclusive. However, considering that Fox sank a big chunk of change into this movie already, I’m going to guess that they’ll have it release in theaters in the last week of Summer as planned, in an effort to recoup as much money as possible and even potentially profit.
The New Mutants will be released on August 2, 2019.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
