At this point, people are probably starting to wonder if there’s any point releasing The New Mutants into theaters at all. It would be a massive understatement to say that the X-Men spinoff has had a troubled history, and after finally glimpsing the light at the end of the tunnel and coming agonizingly close to almost escaping cinematic purgatory, the plug was pulled once again due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
To put things into perspective, Josh Boone’s mutant flick started shooting less than a month after Deadpool 2, and the Merc with a Mouth’s second solo adventure debuted 23 months ago, with the character now in the hands of Marvel Studios. The New Mutants has been so long coming, in fact, that it began life as a Fox property, only for Disney to order the removal of all references to the previous X-Men franchise after it fell into their hands in the wake of their acquisition of the company.
After originally being scheduled for April 2018, The New Mutants has already been delayed a further three times, and despite the Mouse House announcing that the Coronavirus crisis will see them shuffle the release dates for their entire slate of Phase Four projects, the horror-tinged comic book movie has been conspicuously left off the schedule.
Some things just aren’t meant to be, and it certainly seems like a theatrical release for The New Mutants is one of them. Just when it was starting to gain some much-needed traction with the release of a new trailer and images, it gets the rug pulled out from under it yet again. If the studio can’t decide on a new date anytime soon, then they may as well just cut their losses entirely and drop it straight onto Disney Plus.
