The New Mutants was reportedly delayed in order to beef up the scares

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Earlier today, Twentieth Century Fox shuffled around the release dates of a few of their upcoming X-MEN films, and the biggest change was reserved for THE NEW MUTANTS, which was pushed back ten months. That's quite the wait we're suddenly saddled with for a film which was originally scheduled to premiere this April. Although it's been said that the move will prevent Fox from having two superhero films in theaters overseas at once, the other being DEADPOOL 2, it's also been suggested that the lengthy delay will allow the studio to beef up the scares.

THE NEW MUTANTS director Josh Boone had previously said that THE NEW MUTANTS would be "a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe," and that they were "trying to do something very, very different." The first trailer for THE NEW MUTANTS certainly played up the horror-aspects of the film, but according to The Wrap, Fox has found that the film "isn't scary enough." The Tracking Board's Jeff Sneider added that "Word on the street is that after the film tested well but not great, the studio decided to actually embrace the film’s horror elements and beef up the scares in the wake of the success of It and Get Out last year." It's hard to argue with that, especially given how great 2017 was for the horror genre, and when combined with the X-MEN franchise, you can see how audiences might really embrace a truly frightening X-MEN flick.

Assuming THE NEW MUTANTS is a success, it's likely that we'll see more horror-infused entries in the X-MEN franchise as Josh Boone originally brought the concept to Fox as a "trilogy of films," all of which are based on Bill Sienkiewicz and Chris Claremont's run on the series (The New Mutants vol. 1 #18–31, 35–38).

These are all going to be horror movies, and they're all be their own distinct kind of horror movies. This is certainly the ‘rubber-reality’ supernatural horror movie. The next one will be a completely different kind of horror movie. Our take was just go examine the horror genre through comic book movies and make each one its own distinct sort of horror film. Drawing from the big events that we love in the comics.

THE NEW MUTANTS will now debut on February 22, 2019.