Over the past few years, it’s hard to imagine a project with more bad luck than The New Mutants. The film’s production dates back to 2015 from an initial pitch by Josh Boone and Knate Lee. Since then, the film has gone through numerous release date changes along with the purchase of 20th Century Fox by Disney, which delayed the release of the film even further. The latest push came because of the COVID-19 pandemic from a May 2020 release to August 28, 2020.
San Diego Comic-Con@Home welcomed the New Mutants team with a virtual panel and gave fans something to look forward to. The panel kicked off with the aforementioned release date changes the film has suffered throughout the past few years. Ultimately, host Ira Madison brought to the screen director Josh Boone and cast including Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga.
Each cast member received a character emoji and their accompanying hashtag, including #NewMutantMagik, #NewMutantCannonball, #NewMutantSunspot, #NewMutantWolfsbane, and #NewMutantMirage. One of the highlights early on was the cast and director had a great time poking fun at the constant date changes while looking at different posters and fan-made artwork throughout the years.
Director Josh Boone spoke about what led him to work on the film. He talked about his love of the demon bear saga as it mixed superhero and horror into an unbeaten comic book run. Once he completed his work on The Fault in Our Stars, he knew it was a topic he’d like to tackle
Game of Thrones star Maisie Willaims followed Boone’s thoughts as she spoke about how different this character was from Arya Stark. She immersed herself in playing someone who is less secure than Arya. She found this role to be less exhausting, and it was a nice change to play someone who doesn’t command the room.
Host Ira Madison discussed the excitement over the relationship between Maisie and Blu Hunt in the film. Maisie added that from the first audition, she felt she clicked with her and how important it was to establish their relationship in the movie. She called it an absolute joy to work with Blu, which brought a pleasant surprise from director Josh Boone who announced that their audition together would be an upcoming Blu-ray feature.
Boone closed the panel by treating fans and panel viewers to the opening scene of The New Mutants, which will be an action-packed ride by the looks of it. The great news is fans hopefully won’t have to wait much longer as there are still plans to release the film theatrically though not much else was said.
