The New Mutants: Half Of The Movie Is Reportedly Being Reshot

The New Mutants aren't even close to escaping captivity yet.

Fox puzzled comic book movie fans earlier this week with the late-at-night announcement that the studio would be significantly delaying the releases of its upcoming superhero movies X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants, in New Mutants' case for the second time. 

Rumors swirled about the causes for the delays — was this interference from the Disney-Fox merger? How could both movies be in such states of crisis? 

A new report from Collider fills in the blanks on the joint mutant movie delays, with each project being pushed back for what appears to be its own separate reasons. 

In Dark Phoenix's case, the decision to move the release of the movie from its original November 2 release date to February 14 of next year had to do with a third-act rewrite and reshoot process that is set to take longer than usual, owing to the busy schedules of the movie's actors. For a major production of its size, that's not such an unusual thing. 

What's going on with The New Mutants, however, looks to be much more drastic.

According to the report, The New Mutants is undergoing extensive reshoots that will significantly alter the content of the movie, adding not just one, but possibly two new characters and making the movie scarier. 

Apparently, these new roles aren't just bit parts who will exist only in one or two scenes, but rather main characters who will persist throughout the movie — which is pretty complex stuff to add to a movie that's already been shot.

The movie was also finished, it seems, prior to the most recent delay. While director Josh Boone reportedly completed a cut of the movie that he liked, he's now being asked to reshoot, at a minimum, 50% of the movie to accommodate requested changes to the movie's content and tone. According to Collider, Boone doesn't exactly agree with the suggestions, either, so it looks like we might have a bit of a fight on our hands.

If the reports are true, then we would now seem to be firmly in the realm of "studio interference" in the "What's going on with New Mutants" story, which means we can potentially slot this one onto the same track that Ant-Man, Justice League, and Fox's own Fantastic Four rode down before it. 

If the reshoots do turn out to be as extensive as the story suggests, there will be pretty much no way to talk about the final movie without having to think about what might have been. 

A full trailer for The New Mutants premiered in October of last year, promising an April release date. The movie will now premiere on August 2, 2019, leaving a 22-month gap between that initial trailer and the movie's ultimate release. Oof.

The next movie in Fox's X-Men franchise, Deadpool 2, will be out in theaters on May 18.