The Troubled Production of The New Mutants

 

Hello, Everybody. Today, I did something also completely different. This the story behind the very doomed production of the latest Marvel-licensed movie, The New Mutants. I wanted to see this movie forever ago. It was supposed to come out on April 13th, 2018, which was a Friday the 13th, the perfect release of a horror movie. Unfortunately, it was delayed soo many times!! Which made me lose interest as the wait continued. So, here's how everything went soo wrong.

After Josh Boone did The Fault in Our Stars for 20th Century Fox, he created his own comic book with his best friend, Knate Lee by using panels from Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkwicz's New Mutants comics to show what a potential movie trilogy could look like. They were both fans of the characters since they were kids. Boone and Lee took the comic to X-Men movie producer, Simon Kinberg and he really liked it. 

The next year, Fox finalized a deal to have Boone direct the film from a script from himself and Knate Lee, with Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner producing. New Mutants intended to expand on the X-Men movies and to take place 3 years after X-Men: Apocalypse and like 2016's Deadpool, the film would be completely different from the other films with a unique voice to it. Kinberg even said that film would have a "young adult vibe" and that potential characters like Warpath, Sunspot and Professor X would appear. Sunspot previously appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Actor Adan Canto confirmed that he won't be appearing in the film, James McAvoy then confirmed that he won't appear as well and Alexandra Shipp who played Storm in Apocalypse was also expected to be in it but was written out.

During that time, Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams were reportedly in talks to play both Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane and Illyana Rasputin/Magik respectively. With the rest of the team, Sam Guthrie/Cannonball and Danielle Moonstar/Mirage expected to appear. The roster then expanded with Warlock joining the team. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber worked on a new draft while Boone was busy on a new project. Nat Wolff was also in talks to play Cannonball, which would've been his second collaboration between him and Boone. The character, Demon Bear was set to be the main villain, with the film aiming for a "Stephen King meets John Hughes' style horror movie. Demon Bear was a personal villain for Josh Boone, as he was raised by very religious parents, who were part of the Evangelical Southern Baptists and believed in the rapture and demons, and believed that the devil was real. 

On April 2017, the movie went into pre-production in Boston, Massachusetts and was filmed at Midfield State Hospital, which was previously used for the filming location of Shutter Island. It was then scheduled for a potential release of April 13th, 2018 and both Taylor-Joy and Williams were officially cast as Wolfsbane and Magik, Wolff was no longer interested to play Cannonball, Henry Zaga was then cast as Sunspot and Rosario Dawson was then in talks to play Cecilia Reyes, a mentor to The New Mutants, Illyana's brother, Colossus, another character in the X-Men movies, also planned to be in the movie, but was written out for potential future movies. Boone confirmed that it will be a full-fledged horror movie within the X-Men movie universe, with an homage to classic films like The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby and The Shining and based on his love for Stephen King. Boone was also inspired by A Nightmare on ElmSAt the end of the month, Charlie Heaton of Stranger Things fame was then cast to play Cannonball and 2 months later, Blu Hunt was cast as Moonstar and was believed to be connected to Demon Bear in the central storyline and Dawson was replaced with Alice Braga taking over the role of Cecelia Reyes. 

Throughout the development process, the script was torn apart and put back together and then evolved from the "full horror" film to a compromised version without excessive blood and scares and more "young-adult' focused. This was a sign that the movie will suck due to Studio Interference. The casting of Henry Zaga as Roberto da Costa was met with controversy. Zaga, while Brazilian in real life, portrays a comic character who is of Afro-Brazilian descent. Boone stated that he wanted Zaga to be a positive representation of the Brazilian nation and wasn't concerned about real-life racism.

Principal photography began on July 10th, 2017 under the working title, Growing Pains with Peter Deming serving as a cinematographer and ended on September 16th, 2017. Nate Wolcott and Mike Mogis  composed the musical score with Mark Snow composed the final version, while Marilyn Manson did a cover song of Cry Little Sister by Gerard McMahon from the classic movie, The Lost Boys. Boone used practical effects as much as possible to make the film realistic. For example, he had the actors push on spandex sheets to create the effect of figures pushing through the walls of a room, which was a technique created by Wes Craven for A Nightmare on Elm Street, with only 10% of the film being done in green screen. The script had been rewritten to be set during modern day rather than the 80s, which is why Storm and Professor X are absent. Fox Chairman and CEO, Stacey Snider described the film's setting as The Breakfast Club detention mixed with the Cuckoo's Nest institution and has said that it's a haunted house movie with hormonal teenagers. It was also clarified that Demon Bear won't appear as the main antagonist, would still appear. If that makes sense. Boone even said that the filming was stressful for him due to the fact that he had to tone down the film from his original ideas.

Boone and some fellow editors delivered the cut to Fox and they were impressed with it. Three days of additional photography were planned to be completed. However, after the success of 2017's It, the studio decided to have the movie focus on the scary elements of the movie, by selling it as a straight-up horror movie. Fox made the film more like Boone's version. Unfortunately, The New Mutants was pushed back to February 22nd,  2019, allowing Deadpool 2 to avoid any competition. This allowed time for the movie to be reshot to make the movie even more scary. When asked about the delay, Maisie Williams has said that there were concerns during filming regarding the end of shooting to the previous release date. It was also going to include new characters rather than cameo appearances. 

On March 2018, the film was delayed again to August 2nd, 2019, to allow Dark Phoenix to have a February release. By then, the reshoots proved to be more extensive, with the studio now wanting at least half of the movie to be reshot. Its focus was to be make the film as distinct as Deadpool and Logan, while avoiding the movie to be a flop like 2015's Fantastic Four, which went through similar production issues. With the reshoots changing the tone of the movie, they also adjusted a villain subplot by originally having the Essex Corporation-who appeared in X-Men: Apocalypse- leading to the surprise reveal of Jon Hamm as Mister Sinister. However, Fox decided due to the failure of Apocalypse and the reshoots would include a new post-credits scene of Roberto's father, Emmanuel da Costa played by Antonio Banderas. Simon Kinberg later denied this information and revealed that Mister Sinister was intended to appear in the canceled Gambit film.

Reshoots were expected to begin in September 2018, However, following the Disney-Fox acquisition in March 2019,  reshoots still haven't started and a chance that the movie won't be released in theaters but instead on either Disney+ or Hulu. A month later, pushed back yet again to April 3rd, 2020. The reshoots have taken so long to take schedule due to the fact that the cast getting together again proved to be difficult due to scheduling conflicts. 

In August 2019, Disney wasn't impressed with the movie, believing it to be "limited box office potential". Further work was completed and test screenings proved to be positive. By having to make it more frightening, this including breaking ties with the X-Men franchise to give Marvel Studios the option. to include it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However it would still have references to previous X-Men entries, with the inclusion of the Essex Corporation. By the end of December, the film still followed Boone's original version. Disney later confirmed that The New Mutants won't be a part of the MCU. 

On March 7th, 2020, Boone stated that the film was complete, he also explained that post-production had been halted due to the acquisition having already begun and no reshoots ever took place. At that time, 75% of the film had been edited while much of the film's visual effects have not yet finished. By the time of the acquisition, Boone was working on the television series, The Stand and he still needed to edit the movie, which took several months. He also felt that the post-credits scene with Banderas was pointless. After a lengthy production process, the film had its official screening in New York City with the cast reuniting. 

On March 12th, Disney pulled the release of The New Mutants due to the CO-VID19 pandemic and would find another later date sometime this year. On May 4th, the film was listed for home media pre-order release on Amazon, which was taken down hours later. It was still expected to have a theatrical release rather than a straight-to-streaming one. It was now going to be released on August 28th. 

It is now finally released and the reviews are painfully middling, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 32% with the critics consensus saying "Rendering a list of potentially explosive ingredients mostly inert, The New Mutants is a franchise spin-off that's less than the sum of its super-powered parts." other critics have called it "a X-Men-related movie with teens with not-so great powers", "Generic",  "a coherent film lacking any personality", "a Frankenstein of a movie". Many publications including RogerEbert.com and The A.V. Club refused to review the movie, even Bob McLeod, the co-creator of The New Mutants comics disliked the movie. 

And so... after soo many delays which certainly did not help the movie, The New Mutants was finally released at the cost of the X-Men franchise going down in flames. The movie certainly was no Deadpool or Logan. It could've been something more if it stuck with its original release date and that Fox would let Josh Boone do his job. 

And that was the troubled production of The New Mutants.

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