THE NEW MUTANTS Director Josh Boone Addresses Budget Cuts; Says He'll Choose His Next Project "More Wisely"

The New Mutants is definitely a movie that was put through the wringer thanks to multiple delays and a merger between Disney and Fox many believed would lead to it forever remaining unreleased. At the end of last month, it finally arrived in theaters, and it received the response you would probably expect from a release that underwent zero reshoots (when Fox wanted to reshoot the entire thing). 

It was far from a Fantastic Four-shaped disaster - you can read our review by clicking here - but Boone has now reflected on some of those early issues during an interview with BBC. 

"We were just in a perplexing circumstance that most people don't have to deal with," the filmmaker explained. "I feel like we did it. But oh my God, there were a lot of bumps and bruises. You're holding on to it as it gets smaller and smaller and then eventually you're like, 'I can't believe we made this'. Once you start to find what the movie is, the budget comes in hard, you start to realize you're gonna have to cut your dream of it in half." 

Boone later added, "Not in a bad way, just in a 'reality of Hollywood' way that any director who goes to make a movie eventually has to do. So even if someone's making a $200 million movie, I promise they needed $400 million." Of course, it's no secret that Fox slashed the budget, hence why Warlock ended up being cut...only for them to later decide to add him via those unfilmed reshoots.

While Boone has moved on to work on the small screen adaptation of The Stand, it's unclear how the response to The New Mutants will affect his career moving forward. However, he made it clear he plans to "choose my next project wisely" after comparing this experience to the one he had on 2014 hit The Fault in Our Stars. 

"That we had just made that and a pandemic happened was already so weird," he reflected. "And now we're releasing a movie about kids in quarantine? And I'm just like - I don't know - I'll choose the next project more wisely." What that will be remains to be seen, but it won't be The New Mutants 2!