The New Mutants was very different before X-Men: Apocalypse underperformed

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

THE NEW MUTANTS has seen a very troubled production that has led to several delays for a film that was completed over three years ago. The film began as an off-shoot of the live-action X-MEN movies and has since gone on to become its own separate franchise and now that the movie is finally expected to hit screens on August 28, director Josh Boone is looking back on how much more aligned the film was supposed to be with the X-MEN timeline.

Josh Boone revealed to "Slash Film" that THE NEW MUTANTS originally existed in the same timeline as X-MEN: APOCALYPSE and even featured Storm in a central role:

"We were lucky. They really did want it to be different than other stuff. They really pushed us to keep it separate from X-Men stuff, even though it's set in the X-Men universe. We had early drafts that were supposed to be in the same timeline as X-Men: Apocalypse, so it was originally going to be set in the '80s. Originally, Professor X and Storm were in it, and Storm very much played the Alice Braga role."

Cecilia Reyes will now be playing the role intended for Storm and she is portrayed by Alice Braga. The character acts as a caretaker for the group of young mutants stuck in a government facility where they discover sinister conspiracy is lurking its halls. Boone went on to explain the reasons why the studio heads ordered a rewrite on the original script and a lot of it had to do with the underperformance of X-MEN: APOCALYPSE at the box office:

"Over the course of months, a new studio head came in, they said they didn't want any X-Men movies to take place in the past anymore, as if that was the reason that X-Men: Apocalypse was bad. So we were put in the position where we kind of rewrote it to be set now in a nebulous point in time, because nobody knew how the movies had turned out. Dark Phoenix wasn't out yet. Yeah, it's there – they talks about Professor X and those things, but it doesn't have cameos from anyone or anything like that."

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE did underperform at the box office and it wasn't critically well-received, especially compared to the previous film, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. It's easy to see why the studio would start to distance themselves a bit from a proper X-MEM connection, especially if the link is a film that didn't go over well with fans or critics. Because of this. THE NEW MUTANTS went from being the final offering from the live-action X-MEN series to doing its own thing, which might work in the film's benefit. 

Directed and co-written by Josh Boone, the film stars Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, and Alice Braga. THE NEW MUTANTS is expected to hit screens on August 28, 2020, and let's just hope that the film will keep this final release date because it has been known to hop off of a few of them.

Do YOU think it was a good idea for the film to distance the film from X-MEN: APOCALYPSE?