Back in 2015 when director Josh Boone first signed on to direct the X-Men spinoff, the plan was for The New Mutants to launch a trilogy of films centred around the next generation of mutants from Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly to plan for Boone and company: fast forward five years, and The New Mutants is still yet to see the light of day; the movie, now at Disney following the 20th Century Fox acquisition, is targeting an August theatrical release, having been delayed countless times since it wrapped principal photography back in September 2017.
However, it seems the shambolic handling of the movie hasn’t deterred Boone from his original vision, with the filmmaker telling SFX (via Comic Book) that he still has ambitions to complete his planned trilogy.
“Ultimately, after all this time, I was able to make MY New Mutants film, and I’m am proud of it,” said Boone, whose original cut of the film is set to be released by Disney after Fox attempted to enforce reshoots on the filmmaker. “What I’m hoping for now is that it will be successful enough so the studio will allow me to complete a trilogy. I’ve got it all planned out.”
SEE ALSO: New images from X-Men spinoff The New Mutants
Boone has previously teased his trilogy plans, stating in 2017 that: “We brought it to Foxas a trilogy of films, really all based on that long run by Sienkiewicz, and kind of incorporates some stuff from later issues in the 1980s. These are all going to be horror movies, and they’re all be their own distinct kind of horror movies. This is certainly the ‘rubber-reality’ supernatural horror movie. The next one will be a completely different kind of horror movie. Our take was just go examine the horror genre through comic book movies and make each one its own distinct sort of horror film. Drawing from the big events that we love in the comics. It is connected to and a part of the X-Men universe, and will continue to be a part of the X-Men universe and will be a part of that as it opens up in the next movies and all that.”
Given the difficulty that Boone has had bringing The New Mutants to the screen, one would be forgiven for assuming that the film would need to be an astronomical success of Deadpool-level proportions for Disney and Marvel to even consider a sequel to the Fox property. That being said, it has been rumoured that the movie has been reworked to remove any references to the wider X-Men universe, allowing Marvel’s Kevin Feige the option of integrating the film into the Marvel Cinematic Universe should he choose to do so.
Of course, we actually need to see the first movie before we can start thinking about the future…
The New Mutants is directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) and features a cast includes Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) as Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) as Illyana Rasputin/Magik, Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) as Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, Henry Zaga (13 Reasons Why) as Roberto da Costa/Sunspot, Blu Hunt (The Originals) as Danielle Moonstar/Mirage and Alice Braga (Queen of the South) as Dr. Cecilia Reyes.
