Fox has pushed The New Mutants back another six months

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

There was a time when the X-MEN spin-off THE NEW MUTANTS was an exciting project. Director Josh Boone was taking the concepts of the superhero franchise and dropping them into a "full-fledged horror movie" that 20th Century Fox CEO Stacey Snider described as being more like a "haunted house movie" than the average superhero flick. The result was a teaser trailer that brought to mind A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS. 

If all had gone well, we'd be seeing THE NEW MUTANTS on the big screen in just two and a half weeks, as the film had originally been scheduled for release on April 13, 2018. But then things fell apart. The release was delayed 10 months (to February 22, 2019) and the film was said to be undergoing extensive reshoots, partly to add another character into the mix.

Fox has now shuffled their release schedule again, and in the process has pushed THE NEW MUTANTS back another six months. The X-MEN film DARK PHOENIX is moving back from November 2, 2018 to February 14, 2019, and since you can't have two X properties coming out in the same month, Fox has re-scheduled THE NEW MUTANTS to August 2, 2019.

Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, and Alice Braga, THE NEW MUTANTS will introduce

a diverse cadre of teens learning to cope with their superpowers. These new mutants find themselves held in a secret facility against their will and must battle the dangers of their powers, as well as the sins of their past.

Boone had been planning to make a trilogy of NEW MUTANTS films, each being a different kind of horror movie. Now he'll be lucky just to get this one to the screen, sixteen months later than first intended.

Taylor-Joy recently had this to say about the film's delay:

Well, the only thing that I could say, without being in trouble, is that it being delayed is disappointing, frustrating in fact. Because we were all very excited for it to be released on April 13th, and I don’t mean just disappointing for me, but I’m sure there are a lot of other fans that were looking forward to seeing it. 

I do think that there is a great responsibility to make sure the movie is done right and that we deliver the fans something that they can all feel happy about and excited about. So, I don’t think it being delayed is a bad thing because it’s definitely more important to make sure that we get it right than rushing to make a date. So, hopefully, all of these reshoots and adding of the new character that will give the fans an altogether satisfactory, wonderful product."

My excitement for this one is pretty much out the window. At this point, I'm just waiting for Disney's deal to acquire 21st Century Fox to be finalized (maybe in mid-2019), and looking forward to seeing what Marvel Studios will do with the X-MEN and FANTASTIC FOUR properties once they finally have access to them.