The New Mutants is a 2020 American superhero horror film based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name, produced by 20th Century Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is intended to be the thirteenth and final installment in the X-Men film series. The film is directed by Josh Boone from a screenplay by himself and Knate Lee, and stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, and Alice Braga. In The New Mutants, a group of young mutants held in a secret facility fight to save themselves.
Boone and Lee first began work on the film after Boone completed The Fault in Our Stars, the pair having been fans of the New Mutants growing up together. They pitched a potential film trilogy to X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, and in May 2015 were officially signed on to the film. Taylor-Joy and Williams were rumored to be cast in March 2016, and were confirmed over a year later when the rest of the cast began to fill out. Filming took place in Boston from July to September 2017, primarily at Medfield State Hospital, with an April 2018 release in mind. The film then received multiple delays that eventually pushed it back by nearly two years, allowing for reshoots to make the film more frightening.
The New Mutants was released in the United States on August 28, 2020.
Premise[]
Five young mutants, just discovering their abilities while held in a secret facility against their will, fight to escape their past sins and save themselves.
Plot[]
Danielle "Dani" Moonstar, a young Cheyenne Native American, is hidden in a tree by her father as her entire reservation is devastated by a tornado, leaving her the only survivor. After falling unconscious, Dani awakens in an oddly empty hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Reyes, who comforts Dani, explaining that she is not an ordinary human being but, rather, has unique mutant DNA, and she advises her to remain in the hospital until she learns the effects and how to control them.
Dani is introduced to four other teenagers; Samuel "Sam" Guthrie, Illyana Rasputin, Roberto "Bobby" da Costa and Rahne Sinclair. Reyes has brought each of them to the hospital, after they have each either experienced, or accidentally caused, a horrible tragedy. Sam collapsed an entire coal mine on his father and coworkers, killing them all, Roberto accidentally burned his girlfriend to death, Rahne escaped her devoutly Catholic village by killing the priest after he branded her as a witch, and Illyana was enslaved and sexually abused as a child. All of them also possess superhuman abilities due to mutations in their DNA; Roberto can manipulate solar energy, Sam can fly at jet speed, Illyana has inter-dimensional sorcery powers, and Rahne can turn into a wolf or wolf-human hybrid along with having enhanced senses. Reyes herself is also a powerful mutant who can manipulate "plasma-energy" force fields, preventing the five of them from leaving the facility.
Collectively, the five teenagers believe they are being trained to join the X-Men, hence the strict supervision. Reyes warns them that they are considered dangerous and should not leave until they have mastered their superhuman abilities. Dani attempts to escape, but is stopped by a force field surrounding the entire hospital grounds. She then plans suicide from the church clock-tower, but is prevented by Rahne. The two begin to form a romantic relationship, but Illyana antagonizes Dani, who discovers that Illyana has a hand puppet of a purple dragon called Lockheed. Soon, the group all begin to have horrifying real visions of their past tragedies, one of which results in Rahne getting branded on the neck by the same Priest whom she had previously killed. Both Illyana and Reyes deduce that the visions are the result of Dani's powers manifesting themselves: the ability to physically manifest fears, desires or other thoughts from a person's mind into reality as tangible illusions. Reyes consults her employers, the Essex Corporation, who instruct her to collect Dani's DNA and then euthanize her.
As Reyes straps her to a gurney, Dani's panic causes her powers to go haywire. Illyana and Sam are attacked by physical manifestations of Illyana's childhood abusers - monstrous humanoid creatures called the "Smiling Men" - while Roberto tries to break through the hospital's outer barrier, which has now contracted in diameter. Dani uses her powers to discover Reyes's true intentions before Rahne arrives in half-wolf form and mauls Reyes, forcing her to flee. The five regroup in Reyes's office and realize that Reyes was training them to be assassins for Essex and that, to escape, they must kill Reyes to deprive the force fields of their power source. They find and confront Reyes, who warns them that Dani is too powerful and will destroy them all.
Reyes restricts them all with force fields and tries to again kill Dani by asphyxiating her with a force field, which unleashes the Demon Bear – Dani's own fears manifested through her power, and the true cause of her reservation's destruction – on her; Reyes is devoured and Dani rendered unconscious. Rahne tries to reach through to Dani's subconscious and urges her to wake up, while Illyana uses her powers to travel to "limbo" where she retrieves a glowing sword, armor and a tiny, physical manifestation of Lockheed to battle Demon Bear. Eventually, Sam and Roberto join the fight, as well as Rahne, all to no avail. Dani is visited by her father's spirit, who encourages her to face her fear; she awakens and confronts Demon Bear, calming and thus dissipating it. As day breaks, the group leaves the now unshielded facility to find the nearest town.
List of deaths[]
| Name | Cause of Death | Killer | On Screen | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William Lonestar | Mauled to death | Demon Bear | No | |
| Multiple Smiley Men | Severed into pieces | Sam Guthrie | Yes | |
| Smiley Man | Set on fire | Roberto da Costa | Yes | |
| Multiple Smiley Men | Decapitated and cut up | Illyana Rasputin | Yes | |
| Dr. Cecilia Reyes | Mauled to death | Demon Bear | Yes | |
| Demon Bear | Absorbed back into it's host | Dani Moonstar | Yes |
Cast[]
- Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin / Magik:
A Russian mutant with sorcery powers, who "uses teleportation discs to travel". She is the sister of Colossus, a member of the X-Men seen in previous films in the series. - Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane:
A Scottish mutant "struggling to reconcile her religious beliefs with her power to turn into a wolf". - Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie / Cannonball:
A Kentuckian mutant "who can propel himself into the air and is invulnerable while doing so". - Henry Zaga as Roberto da Costa / Sunspot:
A Brazilian mutant "with the ability to manipulate solar energy". - Blu Hunt as Danielle "Dani" Moonstar / Mirage:
A Native American mutant "who has the power to create illusions drawn from the fears and desires of a person's mind". - Alice Braga as Dr. Cecilia Reyes:
A mentor to the group, and a medical doctor "who has the ability to generate a protective bio-field around herself". - Dustin Ceithamer (mo-cap) and Marilyn Manson (voice) as Smiling Man
Antonio Banderas was set to appear in a post-credits scene as Emmanuel da Costa, the father of Roberto and was to be a villain but this was never shot.[1] This scene was changed to a version where Jon Hamm was rumored to portray the villain Mister Sinister, but the specific character was never confirmed and the scene was never shot.[2]
Production[]
Development[]
After completing work on the 2014 film The Fault in Our Stars for 20th Century Fox, director Josh Boone created a comic book with his childhood best friend Knate Lee using panels from Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz's New Mutants comics to illustrate what a potential film trilogy adapting those comics would be like. The pair had been fans of the characters growing up, with Boone calling their stories "really dark, interesting, and different from the typical X-Menstories that we had read". They took the comic to Simon Kinberg, one of the producers of the X-Men film series, who "really liked it". In May 2015, Fox finalized a deal to have Boone direct The New Mutants, from a script by himself and Lee, with Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner producing. The film would be a standalone spinoff film, expanding the universe of the X-Men films. While working on the first draft of the script, Boone sent it and his ideas for the film to Sienkiewicz, who thought Boone "had it figured out" but was also not just copying the comics.
Updating the status of the film in March 2016, Kinberg said that Boone and Lee were working on the script, and that, like Deadpool, the film would be different from the core X-Men films, "maybe not as different as Deadpool, but it has its own unique, original voice to it". Kinberg said that the film would have a young adult "vibe", and that there was potential for characters seen in previous films to appear, namely Warpath, Sunspot, and Professor X, who all have ties to the New Mutants in the comics. Also at that time, it was reported that Maisie Williamsand Anya Taylor-Joy were being looked at to star in the film as Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane and Illyana Rasputin / Magik, respectively. The rest of the title team was expected to consist of the characters Sam Guthrie / Cannonball, Roberto da Costa / Sunspot, and Danielle Moonstar / Mirage. Sunspot previously appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, portrayed by Adan Canto, who was not confirmed to be returning for the new film. James McAvoy, who portrayed Professor X in several previous X-Men films, was said to have a significant role in this one, alongside Alexandra Shipp, who was expected to reprise her role of Storm from X-Men: Apocalypse.
In May 2016, Kinberg confirmed that the script included Professor X, and stated his hope for filming to start at the beginning of 2017. By that August, the titular team's roster had expanded to include the character Warlock, while Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber—who worked with Boone writing The Fault in Our Stars—were working on a new draft of the script while Boone and Lee were busy on another project. In November, the report of Williams and Taylor-Joy's casting was believed to be accurate, and Nat Wolff was being looked at for the role of Cannonball after working with Boone on The Fault in Our Stars. The character Demon Bear was set as the film's main antagonist, with the project aiming for more of a "'Stephen King meets John Hughes'-style horror movie". Boone soon noted that the Demon Bear was a very personal villain for him as a child, as he "was raised by very religious parents. They were EvangelicalSouthern Baptists and they believed in the rapture; they believed the devil was real; they believed in demons."
Pre-production[]
The film had entered pre-production in Boston, Massachusetts by April 2017, in preparation for filming to begin in that city. Location scouting had been taking place, including at Medfield State Hospital, which was previously used as a filming location for Shutter Island. Fox scheduled New Mutants for an April 13, 2018 release. Several weeks later, the studio officially announced the casting of Taylor-Joy and Williams, and was "making serious efforts to find ethnically appropriate actors" for the rest of the cast, widely searching for South American and Native American actors to respectively play Sunspot and Moonstar. By then, McAvoy was no longer slated to appear in the film; Wolff was no longer in the running to portray Cannonball; and Karen Rosenfelt was producing alongside Kinberg, who ultimately spent much of production focused on making Dark Phoenix.
At the end of May, Henry Zaga was expected to be cast as Sunspot, and Rosario Dawson—who also portrays the Marvel character Claire Temple across the various Marvel Netflix television series—was in talks to join the film as Cecilia Reyes, a mentor to the title group. It was explained that McAvoy was no longer involved due to Professor X being written out of the script with further drafts, and Shipp's Storm had likewise been written out of the film. Additionally, Boone confirmed that the film would be "a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe. There are no costumes. There are no supervillains. We're trying to do something very, very different." He was particularly influenced by Bill Sienkiewicz' time as artist on the New Mutantscomic, which he called "a darker and more surreal and impressionistic X-Men series than we'd ever seen before." Boone had previously stated that he does not like horror films, except for "classic ones" such as The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Shining, but was looking to "pioneer and champion doing prestige versions of horror films" based on his love for horror novels such as King's works. At the end of the month, Charlie Heaton was in talks to portray Cannonball.
Zaga, Dawson, and Heaton were confirmed to have been cast at the start of June, and newcomer Blu Hunt was cast as Moonstar after an extensive and challenging international search that prioritized "ethnic authenticity". The character was believed to be central to the Demon Bear storyline that the film focuses on. At the end of that month, Dawson exited the film, and Alice Bragawas cast as Reyes in her place.[10] The final shooting script for the film included contributions from Josh Zetumer, Chad and Carey Hayes, and Seth Grahame-Smith, along with a six-person "writer's room" that Fox hired to generate ideas for the film and also "tear apart the script and put it back together". Throughout the development process on the film, the script evolved from the "full horror" film that Boone and Lee initially wanted to make, and which Fox was resistant to, to a compromise version without "excessive blood and scares" and more "young adult"-focused. Boone created storyboards with artist Ashley R. Guillory to plan out all of the shots before filming.
Filming[]
Principal photography began on July 10, 2017, in Boston, under the working titleGrowing Pains. Peter Deming served as cinematographer for the film. The majority of the film was shot on location at Medfield State Hospital, where Boone said "every single person on my crew ... had weird things happen to them while they were there." Boone wanted to create "as many of the effects practically as we could. It has some big visual effect stuff as well, but we really tried to do everything we could possibly do real so it would feel a little bit more like" the horror movies that he grew up with. For instance, to create the effect of figures pushing through the walls of a room, Boone used the technique originated by Wes Craven of having real actors pushing on sheets of spandex. 10 percent of the film was shot using green screen. Filming ended on September 16, 2017. The film's principal photography was described as "stressful" for Boone, who felt "a bit neutered" during the process due to having to tone down the film from his original "full horror" ideas.
Post-production[]
After filming wrapped on The New Mutants, Fox chairman and CEO Stacey Snider compared the setting of the film to a "Breakfast Club detention / Cuckoo's Nest institutional setting" and described the genre of the film as "a haunted-house movie with a bunch of hormonal teenagers. We haven't seen a superhero movie whose genre is more like The Shining than 'we're teenagers let's save the world.'" Boone delivered a cut of the film to Fox that he was happy with, and it tested as well as initial screenings of Deadpool did with audiences. Three days of additional photography were planned to complete the "YA movie" that Boone, Lee, and Fox had eventually agreed to make. However, following the successful release of the film It, the studio cut the first trailer for The New Mutants to focus on the "scary elements from the film, essentially selling it as a straight-up horror movie". This proved a success, and Fox decided to make the film more like Boone's original vision rather than completing the version that they had been making during production.
Boone said, in October 2017, that he had been influenced by A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and confirmed that the film is set in the modern day. He clarified that Warlock was not in the film—the character was ultimately deemed to be too expensive to portray on the film's budget—but could appear in a sequel, and that the Demon Bear would not be the main antagonist of the film, just that it was "very much inspired" by the run of the New Mutantscomics in which Demon Bear was featured as the main villain. In January 2018, the film's release date was pushed back to February 22, 2019, which allowed it to avoid Deadpool 2, which also had its release changed at that time to a date that would have had both films in theaters at the same time in certain markets, while also allowing time for the reshoots required to make the film more frightening. When asked about this delay the next month, Williams stated that there had been concerns during filming regarding the short turnaround from the end of photography to the previously set release date, especially with the amount of visual effects still needed to finish the film, and so the delay was "for the better". The additional photography was soon set for mid-2018, and was expected to include the addition of several new characters to the film who would be present throughout rather than just added cameo appearances.
Fox again delayed the film's release in March 2018, moving it away from the new February 2019 release date for Dark Phoenix to August 2, 2019; the reshoots required for the film were believed to be more extensive than previously considered, with the studio now wanting at least half of the film to be reshot. The studio's focus was on making the film as distinct from the other entries in the series as Deadpool and Logan, while avoiding the film becoming a "flop" like Fantastic Four which went through similar production issues—industry insiders believed The New Mutants would not end up the same way due to Fox not blaming the issues on Boone as the studio did with Fantastic Four director Josh Trank, and also because the studio was allowing Boone to write and direct the reshoots in order to complete his original vision. In addition to the reshoots changing the tone of the film, they were also set to adjust an antagonist subplot in the film: The New Mutants was originally going to feature the Essex Corporation, which was first teased at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, leading to a post-credits scene featuring the surprise reveal of Jon Hamm as the villain Mister Sinister. However, Fox decided against doing this following the completion of principal photography on the film, and so the reshoots would include a new post-credits scene introducing Antonio Banderas as a different villain.
Reshoots for the film were expected to begin by the end of September 2018, with Kinberg confirming that they were mostly focused on making the film more frightening after the positive response to the horror-inspired trailer. He added that "audiences really embraced the notion of a superhero movie or a comic book movie that was, in its core, a horror film". However, The Hollywood Reporter revealed in March 2019 that the reshoots had still not taken place and there were "none planned so far but things seem to be in the hands of Boone". In May 2019, Kinberg confirmed that reshoots would happen later in the year, and since the actors were committed to various TV serials, "we've got to wait until they get off their shows and they can all be in the same place at the same time." The visual effects are provided by DNEG and Moving Picture Company, supervised by Neil Eskuri, Bryan Liston and Olivier Dumont with help from Method Studios.
Music[]
Nate Walcott and Mike Mogis were confirmed in December 2017 to be composing the score for the film, having worked with Boone on his previous films. In May 2018, Marilyn Manson announced that his cover of the song "Cry Little Sister"—originally written for the film The Lost Boys (1987) by Gerard McMahon—which Manson debuted during his Heaven Upside Down tour, had been recorded specifically for the New Mutants soundtrack.
Release[]
The New Mutants is set to be released in the United States on April 3, 2020. It was originally going to be released on April 13, 2018. However, the film was delayed to February 22, 2019, before being postponed again to August 2, 2019. In March 2019, The Hollywood Reporter indicated that the film may not be released per its schedule, and could instead be released on Disney+ following the acquisition of Fox by Disney. At CinemaCon 2019, Walt Disney Studios confirmed that the film will keep its theatrical release. However, on May 7, 2019, Disney pushed the film back to April 2020, as part of a change to their release schedule. It was rescheduled to August 28, 2020 by Disney in May 2020.
Marketing[]
The first trailer for the film was released in October 2017, on Friday the 13th, with a horror focus inspired by the recent success of the film It. Sara Vilkomerson of Entertainment Weekly felt that trailer delivered on Boone's promise of a different type of X-Men film, and was "creepy". Vilkomerson also noted the trailer's use of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall"; the title treatment for the film introduced in the trailer evokes the treatment used for that song. Alex McLevy, writing for The A.V. Club, also felt that Boone had delivered on his promise of a "straight-up horror film", and said, "Congrats to this creative team for trying something different with the superhero genre." Writing for /Film, Hoai-Tran Bui said the film looked like a bottle episode for the X-Men franchise, and noted that telling a standalone story led to success for Deadpool. Bui also compared the trailer's tone to Stranger Things, and Braga's performance as Reyes to Nurse Ratched. Boone, Lee, Braga, Zaga, and Sienkiewicz promoted the film at a 2017 Comic Con Experience panel.
Cancelled sequels[]
Boone and Lee originally pitched the film to Kinberg as the first in a trilogy. In October 2017, Boone said that the characters Warlock and Karma would appear in the sequels, which he wanted to be "their own distinct kind of horror movies. [The first film] 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." He added that connections to the wider X-Men universe could be explored more in future films. Boone and Lee revealed in December that they were interested in filming the first sequel in Brazil, and that Sunspot's father Emmanuel da Costa would play a role in the franchise.
In April 2019, after Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox, Fox executive Emma Watts described The New Mutants as the final film in the X-Men series after Dark Phoenix.
External links[]
The New Mutants (2020) at the Internet Movie Database- The New Mutants at Wikipedia
- The New Mutants (2020) at Rotten Tomatoes
- The New Mutants (2020) at AllMovie
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