The New Mutants Director Promises The Film Will Make Audiences Cry

The New Mutants has the tall order of not only finishing 20th Century Studios’ X-Men film series but saving its reputation from the commercial and critical failure of the previous entry, last year’s Dark Phoenix. But things are looking bright for the forthcoming picture according to its director Josh Boone, who previously promised a tone more in line with the horror genre than the current trend of Hollywood superhero escapades.

Recently, he’s been promoting the film’s more personal angle, going as far as to say that it may even inspire some tears from the audience. Here’s what he had to say in an interview not too long ago:

“It’s funny, [the studio was] so emboldened by Deadpool and Logan and stuff that they really let us… I can’t believe they’re letting us make this movie,” said Boone during a recent press set visit.

“If you knew all the stuff in it, I still am like, ‘Do they know how fucked up this movie is?’ It is, but we’re trying to make something that would make you scream just as much as it’ll grab your heart and make you cry. Truly, I’ve shown a couple of scenes to people where everybody who saw them cried and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to make people cry.’ So be excited, because that would be something that hadn’t been done before, I think, for most horror movies.”

Boone’s optimism will likely come as good news to X-Men fans, but the proximity of the film’s release to the previous flop combined with multiple delays and rumors of massive reshoots and rewrites have made The New Mutants’ fate feel uncertain to most.

This clearly doesn’t apply to star Alice Braga, however. The Brazilian actress – who plays the role of Dr. Cecilia Reyes in the movie – shared Boone’s positive outlook, even claiming that the tales of rewrites and reshoots have been greatly exaggerated.

“Josh prepared so much, him and [screenwriter Knate Lee], beforehand, about the script and all that, so there’s not much rewrites happening,” Braga recently told ScreenRant. “Like, there’s more creating the environment on set and the energy on set. The location is so amazing, they shot Shutter Island here, the [Martin] Scorcese film, and you can feel it.”

20th Century Studios’ X-Men film series began with 2000’s X-Men and has as of writing produced 12 features, which include major successes such as X-Men: Days of Future Past, Deadpool and Logan. It also includes many flops though like X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Dark Phoenix, as mentioned above. It’s also the eighth highest-grossing film series in the world with $6 billion of worldwide revenue under its belt. Whether it’ll end on a high or low note, though, we’ll all find out soon enough, as The New Mutants hits theaters on April 3rd.