Director Josh Boone is clearly a huge horror fan. He had once battled for the rights to Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles”, which is now being developed into a television series, while also developing new adaptations of Stephen King’s “The Stand” and “Revival”, neither of which have come to fruition. So, when it was revealed last November that his New Mutants would be a Stephen King-style horror film, it wasn’t all that shocking.
The New Mutants, an “X-Men” spinoff, is a group of teenaged mutant superheroes-in-training created by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod. Much like the other “dark universes” being adapted, “New Mutants” was always crossing that line for Marvel. Boone has finally gone on record with his plans for the adaptation, which is not only going to be a horror film but will be set in the X-Men universe.
“We are making a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe,” Boone tells EW, “There are no costumes. There are no supervillains. We’re trying to do something very, very different.”
“Game of Thrones‘” Maisie Williams has been cast in the role of Wolfsbane and Split actress Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik. Sources close to the production say that Henry Zaga, seen most recently in 13 Reasons Why, will soon be announced in the role of Sunspot. (Unconfirmed chatter has it that Rosario Dawson is currently in talks as well.)
What will it be about? The site is told:
“Held in a secret facility against their will, five new mutants have to battle the dangers of their powers, as well as the sins of their past. They aren’t out to save the world — they’re just trying to save themselves.”
Production is slated to begin this July with a release slated for Spring 2018.
Having not kept up since the 90s, Wiki explains that the second “New Mutants” series, launched in 2003, featured a new group of teenage mutants. Unlike the original “New Mutants”, they were part of a huge cast of students at the Xavier Institute. In 2004, it was relaunched as “New X-Men: Academy X”, after which the central group was formally dubbed the “New Mutants.” In the aftermath of the “M-Day” crossover storyline in late 2005, the remaining students were merged into one junior team, the New X-Men. A third “New Mutants” series, reuniting most of the original team, was launched in May 2009.
