Stranger Things‘ Charlie Heaton is set to play Cannonball in the hotly anticipated X-Men spinoff The New Mutants. All reports suggest that the film is going to be a serious departure from your typical superhero fare, with both studio and director aiming to make a straight-up horror movie.
Now, in an interview with EW, Heaton has gone a little further and explained that the pic will be scarier than anything we’ve seen in the genre so far, as it’ll be a full-fledged horror film.
“It’s basically about these mutants in a facility for damaged mutants. It’s a story about these characters coming to grips with who they are and it’s a horror X-Men movie, which we haven’t seen before. I feel like, for an X-Men movie, yeah, I think they’re going full-fledged horror. Without saying too much — I really don’t want to give away too much what it’s about, it’s very under wraps — but it is, in terms of anything we’ve seen in the X-Men world, it definitely is a horror film. It’s scarier than anything we’ve seen in that genre.”
Sounds great, right? And that trailer looks pretty damn fun as well. Plus, test audiences who’ve seen it have done nothing but sing its praises. But don’t get too hyped up, as you’re going to be waiting over a year to watch it, as Fox has delayed its release until August 2nd, 2019.
Word is that they’re focused on making the film scarier, as well as going back for intensive reshoots (50% of the movie, apparently) and adding an entirely new character not present in the original shooting script. In my experience, none of this bodes well for a movie’s quality, and you’d think studio execs might be a little wary of tinkering with it after the disastrous release of Justice League last year.
Even more annoying, we’ve heard reports that this reshoot has resulted in Jon Hamm’s take on notorious X-Men villain Mr. Sinister being cut from the movie. It might just have been a post-credits singer, but as a dedicated Hamm Sandwicher (that’s what we Jon Hamm fans call ourselves), it’s a bit of a kick in the nuts.
Had everything gone to the original plan, The New Mutants would have actually released today – with Friday the 13th being an auspicious day for a horror film to launch. In the meantime, it’s probably best to put this one on the back-burner and try to forget about it until next year. Let’s just hope that whatever eventually hits cinemas achieves the scares Fox so desperately desires.
