The behind-the-scenes story of an X-Men horror movie five years in the making involves The Breakfast Club, penis graffiti, and a whole lot of rewrites. Photo: 20th Century Studios
Somehow, the X-Men spinoff The New Mutants has managed to sustain prerelease buzz ever since its first teaser trailer dropped all the way back in 2017 though audience awareness has mostly kept pace because of the movies superhuman ability to elude release. The horror-skewing project, directed by Fault in Our Stars filmmaker Josh Boone, was originally slated to hit theaters in 2018 but was delayed again and again and again and again.
In normal, non-novel-coronavirus times, a studio wouldnt generally push a movie with a fair-to-middling shot at making money from its release date so many times. Fox (the studio that produced the title in conjunction with intellectual-property holder Marvel) and Disney (its media-behemoth inheritor in last years $71.3 billion Hollywood megamerger) didnt exactly do much to spark optimism in the films commerciality over New Mutants three years in distribution hell. They eventually opted not to screen the movie for critics ahead of its August 28 arrival as one of the first major-studio entres to hit theaters post-lockdown and the lone superhero event title in this Summer of No Blockbusters. In interviews with several people close to the film ahead of its August 28 release, it became clear that the story of The New Mutants tortured path to the screen might be more intriguing than the film itself.
Focused on a disparate team of Gen-Z mutants struggling to understand and control their dangerous powers while facing down a demonic foe, The New Mutants was green-lighted as a hybrid-horror Breakfast Club movie. It was actually set in the 1980s in oblique homage during the script stages, but most elements of that John Hughesdirected generational touchstone wound up being scrapped before the cameras rolled. However, according to sources familiar with New Mutants production, Boone and his co-writer, Knate Lee, were reluctant or outright unwilling to implement such script changes requested by the studio, requiring round after round of rewrites and one intervention-like roundtable read just before filming. Once principal photography was finished, Fox was so displeased with the initial cut the studio discussed throwing the entire movie out to start over with a total reshoot. The controversial finished product a PG-13 dark fantasy pulsed with jump scares if not outright horror or gore then fell victim to the studio merger and the ensuing uncertainty over What now constitutes a Disney film? Answer: not this.
Since 2000, Fox has released a dozen X-Menrelated event films, including seven with the word X-Men prominently featured in their titles; two blockbuster spinoffs centering on the mutant merc with a mouth, Deadpool; and several artier entries about Hugh Jackmans character, Wolverine (such as 2017s Logan, which landed an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay). Dark Phoenix ranks as the franchises only commercial flop, costing a reported $200 million while taking in just $65.8 million domestically. Otherwise, over the past two decades, Marvels Uncanny X-Men has basically minted money for Fox, helping usher in the modern era of blockbuster superhero IP and delivering a cumulative gross of nearly $6 billion.
The New Mutants, however, would represent something of an experiment for the studio. Flush from the financial overperformance of the Fox-distributed 2014 teen romance The Fault in Our Stars, longtime X-Men fan Boone and his childhood friend Knate Gwaltney (a cameraman on all the Jackass-branded movies who also works under the pseudonym Knate Lee) created a homemade comic book based on The New Mutants Demon Bear Saga series, created by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. After talking studio executives and veteran X-Men producer Simon Kinberg through its potential as a filmed trilogy, Boone got Foxs go-ahead to make a tonally distinct first installment featuring teen mutant protagonists being held against their will at a spooky medical facility albeit at a much lower budget than any previous film in the franchise. Horror is cheap. And The New Mutants would arrive as a kind of budgetary palate cleanser at a time when X-Men stars like Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender were demanding ever-larger paydays for sequelizing their roles.
It was understood this was going to be X-Men at a price, says a source with knowledge of New Mutants development, who, like several people quoted here, spoke to Vulture on condition of anonymity citing ongoing business sensitivities. Deadpool had come out and was such a hit. It was sort of like, What would an X-Men movie look like if it was hard-R, broke down some walls, was kind of meta, but it was also like a teen-horror flick with a John Hughes sensibility?
Trouble was, Lee and Boones initial 2015 screenplay drafts failed to deliver the kind of vividly drawn teen drama the filmmaker had pitched to the studio. Moreover, the scripts crude humor needed toning down. Josh was sending around posters where [the New Mutants] characters are put into the Breakfast Club poster. The Legend of Billie Jean was another movie he was always bringing up, says another source with knowledge of the production. Punk-rock-y, rebellious teens are already baked into the X-Men, but here, one of the characters was a misogynist and graffiti-ing his penis on stuff. There were head scratchers. Like, Thats not going to work.
The teen mutants: Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Henry Zaga (13 Reasons Why), Blu Hunt (the CWs The Originals), Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things), and Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma.). Photo: Courtesy 20th Century Studios
Further, some outside observers felt Boone and Lees initial script violated viewers expectations for beloved X-Men characters such as Storm, a powerful mutant capable of psychically controlling the weather, who turned up as a kind of prison warden in early versions of Mutants. She was their sadistic jailer, says one source. It felt like the kids were being tortured. If the X-Men are holding [the young mutants] there, it cant feel different from the mental furniture that audiences bring into the theater knowing that the X-Men are good guys. Storm like that made no sense. (A spokesperson for Disney said Boone was unavailable to speak with Vulture for this article.)
The studio eventually brought in outside help, enlisting Fault in Our Stars writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber to give an uncredited punch-up to the characters. But according to sources who spoke to Vulture, the director remained at a creative impasse with Kinberg the journeyman screenwriter-producer behind such franchise hits and misses as Deadpool, 2015s Fantastic Four, and 2006s X-Men: The Last Stand and Fox senior vice-president Jason Young. The cycle went like this: New versions of the script would come in, then Boone would revise them by replacing or eliminating some of the work that had been added. (Weber and Neustadter could not be reached through their representatives. Interview requests sent to Young via email and LinkedIn were not returned. A representative for Kinberg said the producer was not available because he is on deadline.)
By the winter of 2016, however, Fox officially got cold feet about the direction in which New Mutants was heading. Studio chairpersonchief executive Stacey Snider personally ordered the course correction. Stacey didnt want to do anymore Breakfast Club parts. It had to be horror. Straight horror, a source tells Vulture. Another source adds, They had zero faith the horror-[teen movie]-hybrid version would work in the marketplace.
A roundup of uncredited screenwriters were again hauled in, this time to dial up Mutants scares. Among them: Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes (behind smash hits The Conjuring and its sequel), Joshua Zetumer (RoboCop), and Seth Grahame-Smith (writer of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and producer of It and 2019s It: Chapter Two). But according to people close to Mutants, Boone continued to reject script changes as they came in: Josh and Knate clarified the horror. Then [the Fox executives] bring in another outside writer. And then Josh went back again. There was this pattern where it would be Josh, then someone. Then Josh, then someone. Then Josh. That went back and forth. (Attempts to reach Zetumer and Grahame-Smith through their representatives were unsuccessful. A representative for Chad and Carey Hayes said, They arent credited on this film. I dont think its imperative they are part of an article on this film.)
In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, Boone contrasted his experience adapting Stephen Kings novel Revival in an undisturbed creative bubble and putting together the X-Men spinoff. New Mutants is very different when you work with a studio, youre not in a bubble. The process of writing becomes a much different thing because you have so many people who have an opinion since the movie is so expensive, Boone said. My guess is that it will never be done until were done shooting!
The conflict came to a head in 2017, just before cameras were set to roll. Fox organized a roundtable script reading in New York to compel Boone to come around to their suggested notes to improve the film. In addition to Boone, Lee, and Young, the studio assembled six or seven of the uncredited writers who had been working on New Mutants up until that point as well as Scott Frank, a top-tier screenwriter behind Logan and 2013s The Wolverine, who has functioned as a kind of secret X-Men whisperer, advising on many of the franchises films. According to a Vulture insider, the collected group delivered a roundelay of critiques, pointing out lapses in logic, deficits of humor, and underdeveloped characters. Josh pushed back a little, a source says. People would be like, This doesnt make sense. And Josh would try to explain it. Enthusiasm is not an explanation. (A rep for Frank declined to make him available for this article.)
Principal photography finally took place around Boston between July and September 2017, featuring a fresh-faced ensemble cast that includes Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma.), Blu Hunt (the CWs The Originals), and Henry Zaga (13 Reasons Why) as adolescent asylum shut-ins bonding over mutual alienation and incredible powers. Although Kinberg had shepherded New Mutants through several development rough patches, by the time the movie arrived in postproduction, he had become consumed with work on his own ill-fated directorial debut: Dark Phoenix.
Reshoots or, at a bare minimum, pickups or additional photography, as the industry jargon goes are common for movies with high-stakes IP, but according to studio sources and Boone himself, no additional New Mutants scenes were shot despite rampant rumors to the contrary. At issue: Over the span of Disneys nearly two-year acquisition of 21st Century Fox, which was ostensibly responsible for several of the films release delays, Mutants cast members had aged to a point that made shooting continuity impossible. Ill tell you this: If there hadnt been a merger, Im sure we wouldve done reshoots the same way every movie does pickups, Boone told EW.com. We didnt even do that, because by the time the merger was done and everything was settled, everybodys older.
At this point, according to three sources with knowledge of the project, Fox was hardly sanguine about New Mutants commerciality. Even with the world-beating success of the 2017 Stephen King horror adaptation It which took in $700.4 million worldwide against a $35 million production budget held up as a comparable work, significant doubt lingered about whether Mutants scary-meets-super tone would find an audience. In postproduction, a studio executive noted that a total do-over would not necessarily be a financial wipeout given the films relatively bargain budget. You could throw the movie out, start over, and it would still be the least expensive X-Men movie so far, the sources recall a high-ranking Fox executive claiming.
Yet New Mutants went ahead as is. Once Disney inherited the project in earnest last year, marketers puzzled over where such a dark-fantasy film featuring depictions of madness and a Native American massacre would fit into the Mouse Houses family-friendly corporate ethos. A release scheme on either Hulu or Disney+ was seriously discussed, while Mutants third theatrical delay pushed the movie to an April 3, 2020, rollout, which was, of course, famously trash-heaped by the onset of COVID-19. But in May, Disney signaled its current intent to release the film theatrically on August 28 a status quo commitment made all the more surprising given that the studio had dumped its $125 million version of Artemis Fowl to Disney+ in June and will debut its $200 million live-action adaptation of Mulan on its OTT platform (for a supplementary $29.99 rental) next month.
So can New Mutants final theatrical landfall be interpreted as a rare glimmer of studio confidence in the X-Men franchises most woebegone entry? Or is Disney selecting the title as a canary to send down the coronavirus theatrical coal mine at a moment when audiences may in all likelihood still be reluctant to breathe communal air? With Boone offhandedly mentioning to Collider last month that you sign contracts that guarantee a theatrical release, a third reading of the situation may simply be that Disney is bound to an iron-clad legal agreement obligating it to put Mutants out in multiplexes before VOD.
While no one expects the film to do Avengers: Infinity War opening-weekend numbers at a time when theaters are operating at a maximum of 50 percent capacity, The New Mutants could arrive in release virtually unchallenged (within its genre) to become a qualified box-office success like last weeks Russell Crowe road-rage thriller Unhinged, which took in $4 million domestically. Even if the spinoffs backstory turns out to be more interesting than what appears onscreen, its fair to say Mutants myriad delays and enduring mystique have captured public conversation far beyond most reasonable expectations. People have talked about this being a cursed film because its taking forever, New Mutants comic-book artist Sienkiewicz said at the Comic-Con@Home panel last month. But I think in some respects, the lockdown has actually just amped up the level of interest. People are really rabid for this.
Excerpt from:
What Happened to The New Mutants? - Vulture
- Netflix Controversial R-Rated Adaptation Is A Horror Comedy Masterpiece - Giant Freakin Robot - July 25th, 2024
- Longlegs' Twist Ending Disappointed Me, And That Final Shot Left Me With A Major Question - CinemaBlend - July 25th, 2024
- Red-Band Trailer For The Heavy Metal Horror Film WOLVES AGAINST THE WORLD - GeekTyrant - July 25th, 2024
- The Summers Best Indie and Art-House Horror Movies Are All Out This Month - Vogue - July 25th, 2024
- The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) WTF Really Happened to This Horror Movie? - JoBlo.com - July 25th, 2024
- Second Time's a Charm: 4 of the Best Horror Remakes of the 1980s - The Lineup - July 25th, 2024
- How Chris Stuckmann Went From YouTube Film Critic to Making His Own Horror Movie Courting Neon and Mike Flanagan in the Process - Variety - July 25th, 2024
- Friday, July 19: These 5 New Horror Movies Just Released Today - Bloody Disgusting - July 25th, 2024
- Terrifier 3 teaser trailer promises the scariest & goriest horror movie of 2024 - Dexerto - July 25th, 2024
- The 10 Best Horror Movies of the 2020s So Far, According to Letterboxd - Collider - July 25th, 2024
- New 'terrifying' horror movie thats left audiences 'screaming' in theatres draws near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score - UNILAD - July 25th, 2024
- A New Horror Movie Is Over 95% Fresh On Rotten Tomatoes, But You Might Not Have Heard Of It Yet - CinemaBlend - July 25th, 2024
- The Terrifying Monsters in This Nicolas Cage Horror Movie Were Inspired by Goofy - Collider - July 25th, 2024
- Netflix Horror Movie Goes Beyond Disturbing Within The First Few Minutes - Giant Freakin Robot - July 25th, 2024
- What is Longlegs about? Everything to know about the hit horror movie starring Nicolas Cage - Entertainment Weekly News - July 25th, 2024
- Oddity is THE scariest film of the year: Critics rave about new horror movie - The Independent - July 25th, 2024
- Eric Banas Only Appearance in a Horror Film Was Based on a True Story - MovieWeb - July 25th, 2024
- 1970s Horror TV Movie Thrilled A Generation But No One Remembers It - Giant Freakin Robot - July 25th, 2024
- The Beast Within Exclusive Clip Kit Harington Transforms in Werewolf Horror Movie - Bloody Disgusting - July 25th, 2024
- This Is the Hands Down The Weirdest Horror Film on Prime Video Right Now - Collider - July 25th, 2024
- Maika Monroe Sells the Terror of Oregon-set Horror Film Longlegs With Her Eyes - Willamette Week - July 17th, 2024
- Nicolas Cage's New 86% RT Horror Movie Is The Silence Of The Lambs Replacement I've Wanted For Years - Screen Rant - July 17th, 2024
- Review: Longlegs is the Silliest Horror Film of the Year - The Cosmic Circus - July 17th, 2024
- How Longlegs Shocked the Box Office to Become the Summers Breakout Horror Hit - Variety - July 17th, 2024
- Longlegs: The scariest horror movie of the year knows exactly how to weaponise Nicolas Cage - The Indian Express - July 17th, 2024
- Budget horror movie earns $22 million at the box office all by hiding its A-list star - UNILAD - July 17th, 2024
- The New Horror Film That Knows How to Rattle the Nerves - The Daily Beast - July 17th, 2024
- 'The Deliverance' Trailer - Netflix Spent Big Money on This Horror Movie from Director Lee Daniels - Bloody Disgusting - July 17th, 2024
- Apple's brilliant new iPhone ad is a mini horror movie meant to scare Android users - PhoneArena - July 17th, 2024
- Bride of Re-Animator (1990) WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? - JoBlo.com - July 17th, 2024
- Review: Starve Acre Is an Homage to Classic Folk Horror - The Mary Sue - July 17th, 2024
- The Most Acclaimed Horror Movie of the Year Is Here. Is It As Scary As Everyone Is Saying? - Slate - July 17th, 2024
- This Maika Monroe Movie Gave Us One of the Most Chilling Moments in Recent Horror - Collider - July 17th, 2024
- Celebrating Film Nostalgia With Ooze and Ahhs at Blobfest - The New York Times - July 17th, 2024
- Horror movie Longlegs has gone viral with its creepy marketing campaign. But is it more than just a stunt? - Northeastern University - July 17th, 2024
- Five Sci-Fi/Horror Movies That Take Place Inside an Apartment Building - Reactor - July 17th, 2024
- 8 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including Longlegs - Bloody Disgusting - July 17th, 2024
- Neons Longlegs scaring up strong box office as big-budget Fly Me to the Moon struggles - Los Angeles Times - July 17th, 2024
- The Deliverance: release date, trailer, cast and everything we know about the Lee Daniels horror movie - What To Watch - July 17th, 2024
- POLL: What Are The Best Horror Movies of 2024 (So Far)? - JoBlo.com - July 17th, 2024
- The Exorcism's Adam Goldberg, Ryan Simpkins and Filmmakers on Making the Meta Horror Film (Interview) - Nerd Reactor - June 20th, 2024
- Hanky Panky Review: The Right Kind of Silly - Fangirlish - June 20th, 2024
- 40th Anniversary screening of Children of the Corn coming up in July in Whiting - KTIV Siouxland's News Channel - June 20th, 2024
- Who Watches The Watchers? Unfortunately, Me - Reactor - June 20th, 2024
- 10 Best Horror Sequels Of The 1990s - Screen Rant - June 20th, 2024
- The Inheritance trailer: Alejandro Brugus horror film reaches theatres and VOD in July - JoBlo.com - June 20th, 2024
- Metal & Movies Mash-Up: Motorhead and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth - JoBlo.com - June 20th, 2024
- Live-Action Horror Film Sayuri to Open on August 23 - Anime News Network - June 20th, 2024
- The Netflix Sci-Fi Horror Action Blockbuster That Kicked Off A Mega Franchise - Giant Freakin Robot - June 20th, 2024
- Peyton List Wishes She Was Left Out of the Will in New 'The Inheritance' Trailer - Collider - June 20th, 2024
- Can't wait to never sleep again!: The Horror Film That Could Make or Break Mike Flanagan's Stellar Career Gets ... - FandomWire - June 20th, 2024
- MaXXXine team discuss blending fact and fiction by including a real-life serial killer in the horror movie sequel - Gamesradar - June 20th, 2024
- Where suspense and silliness collide - theSun - June 20th, 2024
- NWA wrestler Max the Impaler to star in horror movie - Figure Four Online - June 20th, 2024
- NWAs Max The Impaler To Star In Dolly Horror Movie - Wrestlezone - June 20th, 2024
- Fans all notice one particular thing as trailer drops to sequel 'so gory and disgusting' that star vomited - UNILAD - June 20th, 2024
- Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th: The Forgotten Horror Parody Movie - Flickering Myth - June 20th, 2024
- The Exorcism review: "The Russell Crowe horror veers more ridiculous than terrifying" - Gamesradar - June 20th, 2024
- Bloody Smile 2 trailer finally explains movie's mysterious marketing and promises a bigger scale for sequel to the hit ... - Gamesradar - June 19th, 2024
- Award-Winning Horror Movie Fang is Now Streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV - EIN News - June 19th, 2024
- My most anticipated horror movie of the year just got a whole lot creepier thanks to Nicolas Cage - Yahoo News UK - June 19th, 2024
- The Best Horror Anthology Ever Is Being Kept Away From The New Generation - Giant Freakin Robot - June 19th, 2024
- Kit Harington Shows Off the Real 'Beast Within' in New Horror Film - Collider - June 19th, 2024
- A sequel to the Netflix cult horror film Circle is in the works - imdb - June 19th, 2024
- Nicolas Cage's upcoming horror movie debuts to perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, with critics calling it "the scariest film ... - Gamesradar - June 19th, 2024
- 5 best horror movies on Prime Video with 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes - Tom's Guide - June 19th, 2024
- Max The Impaler To Star In New Horror Film 'Dolly' - Fightful - June 19th, 2024
- Jordan Peele, Lee Cronin Have New Horror Films On The Way - Bleeding Cool News - June 19th, 2024
- This Horror Film Was Livestreamed: One More Round With Generation Loss - Alternate Reality Gaming Network - June 19th, 2024
- I'm Delighted This Horror Movie Is Now A Streaming Success After Its $53M Box Office Letdown 2 Months Ago - Screen Rant - June 19th, 2024
- Nicolas Cage's new apocalyptic horror movie often leaves viewers in the dark, but that's actually a good thing - Gamesradar - June 19th, 2024
- Fans and celebrities to gather for Tampa Bay Screams Horror Convention - Tampa Bay Newspapers - June 19th, 2024
- This Classic Horror Movie Influenced the Harkonnens of Denis Villeneuve's Dune - Collider - June 19th, 2024
- The Nasty Torture Horror Movie That the UK Branded Too Depraved for Release - Collider - June 19th, 2024
- Critics are shocked by Nicolas Cage's new horror movie and it's 100% on Rotten Tomatoes - Tom's Guide - June 19th, 2024
- Joko Anwars Nightmares and Daydreams: Cast and Plot - Netflix Tudum - June 19th, 2024
- NWAs Max The Impaler To Star In Dolly Horror Film - eWrestlingNews - June 19th, 2024
- Bizarre dance with the unexpected - theSun - June 19th, 2024
- The Best Horror Movies on Max to Watch Right Now - CNET - June 1st, 2024
- This New Winnie-The-Pooh Horror Movie Might Actually Be Better Than Blood & Honey - Screen Rant - June 1st, 2024
Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero