"The New Mutants" and Sympathy for the Cursed

There was a time when only one man owned Friday the 13th. For close to 40 years, Jason Vorhees was the patron saint of the bad luck holiday, chopping down hormonal teens who dare to bother him at Camp Crystal Lake. Those who tried to impede were often met with much worse fates, and cinema never found an icon who could possibly compete. Even as the Friday the 13th franchise has laid dormant for 11 years, there is this sense that he’ll ambush the new kids, dismembering their chances into a bloody corpse. 

The latest team to duke it out with Jason is The New Mutants. The story follows a group of teenage mutants (no ninja turtles) as they’re stuck in a mental asylum. It’s a who’s who of young actors featuring Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Heaton among others. The X-Men movie has been described as “John Hughes-meets-Stephen King.” The fact that it was shot at Medfield State Hospital, the same place as the horror-mystery classic Shutter Island (2010), only adds to its credibility. The success of 2017’s IT adaptation allowed the first trailer to be dropped during a time when horror was reaching a fever pitch. When was it released? Why Friday the 13th of October of course. When was the movie going to be released? Friday the 13th of April 2018. 

While Jason couldn’t be reached for comment, the history books have already documented The New Mutants’ unfortunate release history or lack thereof. This isn’t including any behind the scenes conflicts, including constant rewrites that initially fit the film around X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) before removing every element altogether. Even if this seems reminiscent of other comic book flops by 20th Century Fox like Fantastic Four (2015), there is an assurance that this isn’t. However, much like Medfield State alum Shutter Island, it couldn’t come without some delay. There is something audacious about recalling every release change since 2018. So, let’s try…

Filming was completed between July 10, 2017 and September 16, 2017.  

The first trailer is released October 13, 2017 with a release date of April 13, 2018 

In January 2018 the release date is pushed back to February 22, 2019 as to avoid crossover with Deadpool 2 (May 10, 2018). This was also to allow for planned reshoots, as characters were being added and/or removed. There was also a need to make the film scarier. 

In March 2018, the release date is pushed back to August 2, 2019 as to avoid crossover with X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Dark Phoenix also suffered major setbacks and reshoots before being released June 7, 2019. 

In March 2019, it was announced that no reshoots had been planned. It was during this time that Disney also bought 20th Century Fox, thus sabotaging any plan for it to be released by its original studio. Disney would also request removal of any ties to Fox’s X-Men franchise, as they wanted to consider potentially incorporating the property into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There was talk that the release could be “adjusted.”

In May 2019, Disney announced that The New Mutants would officially be released on April 3, 2020. Director Josh Boone would also claim that the final cut had been completed and that no reshoots had been done since prominent actors had aged too far out of the role. 

In March 2020, the film was delayed “for later in 2020” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many still speculate that it may appear on Disney+ or Hulu, but no official plans have been announced. Plans for a trilogy that would include Antonio Banderas as the villain have been downgraded to questionable especially with Dark Phoenix’s box office failures marking the end of the Fox-owned X-Men franchise.

We were THIS CLOSE to the film being a reality

On one hand, this is something that always happens. With very limited exceptions, most movies have to be altered in some capacity to meet a successful release strategy. At best, they will strike while the iron is hot, appealing to a market sparse with comparable competition. At worst, they will join the bombs that came before. It’s weird that it now plays like an urban myth that the X-Men franchise was once so dominant at the box office, capable of holding their own against the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then again that’s the power of being one of the flagship comic book franchises of the 21st century. Its success alone could be measured by the fact that it existed for a near 20 years. 

And the worst part? It was just getting interesting.

Films like Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix had a business as usual tone to them. They were giving us these team-up movies that we long expected from the franchise. However, if Hugh Jackman taught us anything it was that solo movies were often better (X-Men: Origins - Wolverine notwithstanding). It allowed for a deeper dive into characters and allowed them to not feel crowded by Professor X’s C-students walking in the background to get that S.A.G. card. Suddenly we were free to look beyond the hallways and see characters like Deadpool and The Wolverine as their own tonal beasts.

In 2015, it felt like the world was about to change for the better. Here came Deadpool, which presented an X-Men movie that had never been seen before. He was a character who broke the fourth wall, deconstructed the very idea of an origin story, and all for the sake of our entertainment. It felt like anarchism, and in the process suggested that the X-Men didn’t have to be these brooding dramas with serious subject matter. They could be fun and play with form. It makes one wonder what they could’ve done had they thought to use their original actors before they were recast. It’s great to imagine a solo Storm movie or that long-proposed Gambit movie with Channing Tatum that is definitely not happening anymore. 

The truth is that the modern D.C. Extended Universe is essentially what this X-Men franchise could’ve been. Following a disjointed rollout of films like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, they reinvented their form with delightful aplomb. Wonder Woman played with espionage and war imagery. Aquaman took some wacky tobacky to make the most nonsensical film to gross a billion dollars. Shazam allowed them to get more slapstick and silly with a youthful boy’s club perspective. Then there was Birds of Prey: and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which feels the most revolutionary in turning Looney Tunes-style antics into a break-up comedy for the ages. The fact that there is no expectation for tonal consistency anymore makes every D.C.E.U. film feel more exciting, and it’s what I wish we got following Deadpool.

To be fair, we got Deadpool 2. There was also Logan, which said farewell to Hugh Jackman with one of the greatest superhero films of the decade. In a more perfect world, this was the farewell we got to the franchise and not the delayed releases of depleting titles that make the franchise seem far more pathetic than it was. Logan was a neo-western that cleverly explored the aging male in a mold, not unlike the John Wayne sunset The Shootist, full of deep sadness for the better days as he handed the reins to the younger generation. There was even Logan Noir, which was Logan but in black-and-white. As far as gimmicks go it kind of works. Still, it was so dramatically rich and symbolized what made Jackman a great fit for the role better than any comic book performance until Robert Downey Jr. in Avengers: Endgame (which even then felt like a smaller piece in a bigger puzzle). 

Logan (2017)

It’s how this franchise should’ve ended, and it is why moving things out of order has only made this whole thing seem worse. The New Mutants was supposed to follow in Deadpool and Logan’s tracks and play with genre. It was going to be the b-movie horror companion to the flagship series, and it was going to introduce worlds that mainstream cinema had only begun to play with. Instead, it will be dumped somewhere and be forgotten about. At this point, it’s more remembered for all of its failures than any single piece of marketing. 

It’s a shame because every time it feels like The New Mutants will have its day, it has several steps back. It’s gotten so bad that star Anya Taylor-Joy’s career has moved on since. In that time she has completed a different horror trilogy with M. Night Shyamalan's Eastrail 117 series in Split (2017) and Glass (2019) and has gone even further. Now she’s starring in a delightful, madcap adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma., which proves she’s capable of comedy as well as frights. Likewise, Maisie Williams could’ve ridden The New Mutants marketing on the backs of her Game of Thrones popularity. But alas that credibility has set sail almost a year ago now.

There is still the chance that this is all proven farcical and its potential release will be a sleeper hit. It feels less likely now that TWO studios have basically pushed it aside for other titles. It feels like the film is cursed. Even when it seemed like it would get released, it was announced the week of Friday the 13th March 2020 that things were a no-go. Of course, COVID-19 is out of Disney’s control and it’s impacting everyone in every industry, but whereas films like Mulan and Antlers feel like unfortunate circumstances, The New Mutants is wearing it like a punchline. The original release date will be two years ago next month. It was delayed for reshoots that never came. There is no reason to believe that anyone cares anymore. Even Boone has moved onto his next project, an adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Stand.”

For those arguing that it should be dumped on Disney+ or Hulu, just know that it will only make the story more depressing. What started as Fox’s alternate programming being a forgotten extra by Disney feels distressing. 

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made (2020)

One simply needs to look at Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. Yes, you’ve probably noticed it when you’re searching for ways to stream The Mandalorian. It’s got the kid with the polar bear solving mysteries. It seems kind of dumb right? 

Well, what if I told you it was the cinematic follow-up to a Best Picture winner? Yes, director Tom McCarthy could’ve done anything after Spotlight but five years later, he released a film that barely played at Sundance before dropping unceremoniously on Disney+. It’s serviceable, but it makes you realize how Disney is a black hole for even the best of us, never allowing the post-Oscar glory to feel as great as it used to. The New Mutants had been delayed so much that it feels like the inevitable option, but it also feels like your brother taking a sledgehammer to your 2,000 piece LEGO sculpture.

Even if I’m still eager to see this movie, I get the impression that there will be no happy ending until it’s all over. I imagine that once we get three years beyond the film and there’s nothing left but DVD’s in a bargain bin that the film will not carry a stink with it. The world has changed incredibly since The New Mutants finished shooting. While there hasn’t been a great sample of horror comic book movies to pull from, it feels more commonplace. 

Most of all, the X-Men franchise doesn’t exist anymore. Hugh Jackman sings atop CGI elephants now. There’s no real place for this movie to belong, and it’s tragic. It joins a fate often reserved more for Marvel’s TV series like Inhumans and Iron Fist. It exists, but it doesn’t mean that anybody cares. It’s a shame because if it’s good, it could’ve meant greater things for X-Men as a brand. The idea of wasted potential makes this a hilarious tragedy, itself likely to be forgotten as soon as its opening weekend has passed.