Nearly two and a quarter years ago, we here at the Vanyaland Film Section stayed up until 3 in the goddamn morning to bring you coverage of the first trailer for Josh Boone’s The New Mutants as soon as it hit the internet. We have fond memories of being seriously disappointed by what we saw, and immediately regretted the entire endeavor, and we vowed to never do it again — a promise we broke probably a week and a half later thanks to a combination of drinking too much coffee too late in the day and general anxiety-induced insomnia. Anyways, a lot has changed since that first trailer dropped: Disney bought 20th Century Fox, Dark Phoenix stank up screens when it was unceremoniously dumped on to screens last June, and the original era of X-Movies finally came to an end.
One thing that hasn’t changed very much is The New Mutants itself, which Fox dropped a brand new trailer on Monday, where it’ll presumably be attached to prints of Underwater when that hits theaters later in the week. It feels properly dated at this point (in an era of colorfully costumed characters, the Bryan Singer “tights are for wimps” aesthetic feels very old-fashioned), no matter how much one wants to ignore that fact. It was rumored for a while that it would be hitting Disney+, perhaps to save some cash money for The House of Mouse, given that wide theatrical releases are, well, expensive, but apparently that isn’t the case, and Fox decided that giving the Hellboy release date slot to Boone’s film would be a swell suggestion as to its ultimate quality. But boy, does this look rough as hell, and any movie that can somehow squander both Maisie Williams and Anya-Taylor Joy deserves some sort of props, honestly — it took a whole eight seasons of Game of Thrones for David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to do that to the former!
Take a look for yourself:
Here’s a synopsis:
“Twentieth Century Fox in association with Marvel Entertainment presents ‘The New Mutants,’ an original horror thriller set in an isolated hospital where a group of young mutants is being held for psychiatric monitoring. When strange occurrences begin to take place, both their new mutant abilities and their friendships will be tested as they battle to try and make it out alive. Directed by Josh Boone and written by Josh Boone & Knate Lee, ‘The New Mutants’ stars Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga.”
The New Mutants hits theaters on April 3, though as with anything New Mutants-related, trust that information about as far as you can throw it.