NEW MUTANTS IMAGES GENERATE PRE-RELEASE BUZZ...AGAIN

Another round of enticing pics have emerged from director Joshua Boone’s long-delayed X-Men spin-off, The New Mutants, but is it too little too late?

Hot off the box office success of his 2014 YA adaptation The Fault in Our Stars, Boone and offsider Knate Lee used panels from the graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz to pitch the project at 20th Century Fox. Principal photography began in July 2017, with an impressive cast headlined by Anja Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin / Magik, a Russian mutant with sorcery powers and a purple dragon called Lockheed, and Game of Thrones’ actress Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane, a Scottish mutant in command of her own brand of lycanthropy.

The latest series of images suggest the ‘nightmarish fantasy’ element has been amped up. Former Fox CEO Stacey Snider told Variety that the cut she saw was, “Breakfast Club meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, while Boone cites the institutionalized horror of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors as a key inspiration. The April edition of special effects bible Cinefex Magazine features impressive shots of ‘Demon Bear’ towering over Taylor-Joy’s Majic and a hideous creation tagged ‘Smiley Man’.

The subject of much fan speculation and industry conjecture, The New Mutants has to date juggled planned reshoots, internal bickering over final cut rights, the Disney acquisition of 20th Century Fox and, for good measure, a global pandemic that shuttered cinemas indefinitely. So far, it has been allocated then bumped from April 13, 2018 to February 2019 to August 2019 to April 3, 2020; been cut to suit a PG-13 rating from its original R-rated vision (though some reports suggest the R version is back in place); and, watched from the sidelines as X-Men Dark Phoenix bombed, tarnishing the core brand.

With the streaming platform business booming, the seemingly cursed film has been touted as a prime candidate for a home viewing premiere. Disney were quick to signal that is always an option when they bumped Kenneth Branagh’s Artemis Fowl from a theatrical slot to the small-screen, where it premieres June 12. But a complicated contractual arrangement that dictates HBO gets current Fox product until 2022 means that Disney (or, more likely, their adult-oriented platform, Hulu) are unlikely to premiere it without a multiplex run.

Word spread overnight that the film was available for pre-order on VOD platform Amazon Prime. No release  date was confirmed, but prices suggested it would be a home-viewing premiere, with the streaming service charging US$25.99/£13.99 before the link was removed. None of the other streaming services offered a pre-order option, suggesting slippery fingers at Amazon Prime may have ‘accidentally’ gone live with the page prematurely.

Co-starring Blu Hunt (pictured, above) as Native American mutant Danielle Moonstar / Mirage, Brazilian actor Henry Zaga as solar energy manipulator Roberto da Costa / Sunspot, and Charlie Heaton as human projectile Sam Guthrie / Cannonball, The New Mutants carries with it a great deal of industry expectation. In the wake of the expensive implosion of Dark Phoenix at the international box office, Joshua Boone’s new-look X-Men adventure takes on the added responsibility of a brand reboot; a fresh take on an ageing franchise to appeal to a younger audience. The original 1980's setting was made contemporary, while series' holdovers James McAvoy, as Professor Xavier, and Alexandra Shipp, who played Storm in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, disappeared from key roles as new drafts of the script were developed.

The latest release date for The New Mutants has yet to be announced.