Yesterday brought the disappointing news that two of Fox’s upcoming X-Men universe movies will have their release dates significantly pushed back. The announcement that X-Men: Dark Phoenix was moving from November to next February was irritating enough for fans, but that was nothing compared to the reveal that The New Mutants was moving from February 2019 to August. That’s a whole year and 4 months after it was initially expected to arrive.
Clearly, there’s some major rethinking of the movie going on behind the scenes, and a new report from Collider might just have unveiled exactly what the situation is. According to the outlet’s sources, Fox is demanding that a whopping 50% of footage is remounted as part of the extensive reshoots that are currently ongoing. As has been previously reported, the intention is indeed to make The New Mutants more explicitly scary, seeing as horror movies – like Get Out and It – have found much success in the past year.
This decision, however, has allegedly pitted the studio against director Josh Boone, who was very happy with the initial cut of the movie he previously handed in. It seems he had good right to be, too, as the film was received warmly by test audiences. Nonetheless, Fox are pressing ahead with their mandated reshoots, with major changes – such as whole new characters – being made to the narrative.
This report will do nothing to convince fans that the situation is under control. Such blockbusters as Solo: A Star Wars Story and Justice League have received negative backlashes of late after the studios heavily interfered with the creative team’s vision.
While we can’t speak for the former just yet, the behind the scenes problems definitely impacted on JL‘s reception, so Fox are definitely risking some sizable blowback with their strategy on The New Mutants. Especially considering that it sounds like they had a solid enough movie to start with.
We’ll have to see if they made the right call when The New Mutants finally arrives in cinemas on August 2nd, 2019.
