In the continued struggle of the little movie that could (maybe?), reports are coming in that in Disney’s ongoing process of revising the film to their standards, the latest cut of The New Mutants has removed any connection to the X-Men films released by Fox.
Mutants has been delayed again and again, even before the still-being-written legacy of Disney’s acquisitions in the 21st Century Fox deal. Originally slated to be released on April 13th 2018, it was pushed to February 22nd of 2019 a few months before release. A mere few months later, it was again delayed to August 2nd to make room for Dark Phoenix, which was then scheduled for February as well. Dark Phoenix didn’t make that date either. The Disney-Fox buyout would further complicate things, more or less getting us to today, where The New Mutants has a date currently of April 3rd, 2020.
But we’re not there yet.
The latest reports would indicate that Disney hasn’t entirely abandoned the project, as some may have feared. Given the rocky production before the transfer of ownership to Disney it would be natural to assume that the picture isn’t in a solid state for release, and perhaps not up to Disney’s standards. Dark Phoenix certainly wasn’t the elegy for the X-Men a studio could be proud of.
FandomWire cites a source close to the production, speculating that the attempt at a clean slate is “in case Kevin Feige decides later he wants to bring The New Mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Makes sense. And we certainly know Feige and co. are up to something with Marvel’s mutant strike-force.
Meanwhile, we await The New Mutants. At least, I do. Once upon a time, in a world less-complicated, this writer was actually excited to see a horror-tinged spin on angsty young mutants.
EXCLUSIVE: DISNEY REMOVES ALL TIES TO FOX’S X-MEN FRANCHISE IN LATEST CUT OF ‘THE NEW MUTANTS’ [FandomWire]
