THE NEW MUTANTS: Fox Considered Reshooting The Entire Movie; Shocking New Details On BTS Chaos Emerge

THE NEW MUTANTS: Fox Considered Reshooting The Entire Movie; Shocking New Details On BTS Chaos Emerge

Some shocking new details have emerged about the production of The New Mutants, including a huge number of uncredited rewrites, Storm's bizarre original role, and plans to reshoot the entire movie...

By JoshWilding - Aug 27, 2020 01:08 PM EST
Filed Under: New Mutants
Source: Vulture

Vulture has done some digging into The New Mutants - talking to several people close to the production - and come back with some real bombshells about what happened behind the scenes. As we recently learned, the original plan was for the movie to be set in the 1980s so that it would tie into X-Men: Apocalypse and the main franchise's timeline. However, after that underwhelmed both critically and financially, Fox changed tact, and director Josh Boone and co-writer Knate Lee's plan to deliver a "hybrid-horror Breakfast Club movie" were thrown out by the studio. 

That did not sit well with either of them, and once shooting was finally finished, it's said that "Fox was so displeased with the initial cut the studio discussed throwing the entire movie out to 'start over' with a total reshoot." That likely explains the reports that surfaced when the movie was first delayed by Fox, but there's a lot more to the story than that. 

Apparently, Boone and Lee's initial 2015 screenplay didn't really deliver what they'd initially pitched, with crude humour, in particular, needing to be toned down. As well as The Breakfast ClubThe Legend of Billie Jean served as part of the filmmaker's inspiration, but as one source puts it, "Punk-rock-y, rebellious teens are already baked into the X-Men, but here, one of the characters was a misogynist and graffiti-ing his penis on stuff. There were head scratchers."

It's no secret that Storm was in an earlier version of The New Mutants (the director has talked about that on a number of occasions), but here, Boone portrayed her as the "sadistic jailer" of the leads, a depiction which confused those at the studio. "It felt like the kids were being tortured," one source explains. "If the X-Men are holding [the young mutants] there, it can’t feel different from the mental furniture that audiences bring into the theater knowing that the X-Men are good guys. Storm like that made no sense." At this point, a number of writers were brought in to take a crack at the screenplay, including The Fault in Our Stars scribes Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, but Boone kept butting heads with producer (and Dark Phoenix director) Simon Kinberg. 

New versions of the scripts kept coming in, with Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes (The Conjuring), Joshua Zetumer (RoboCop), and Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) all making attempts to punch up the horror after studio boss Stacey Snider decided it should be a straight horror movie, and not the teen drama/horror hybrid Fox originally greenlit. Boone would then do his own revisions, often removing the changes that had been made. Things came to a head before cameras rolled in 2017, with a roundtable assembled made up of some of those uncredited writers and Logan scribe Scott Frank. They "delivered a roundelay of critiques, pointing out lapses in logic, deficits of humor, and underdeveloped characters." Still, Boone pushed back. 

Shooting obviously did end up happening, and that takes us back to Fox's unhappiness with what was delivered to them. A high ranking Fox executive tells the site, "You could throw the movie out, start over, and it would still be the least expensive X-Men movie so far." That's something they seriously considered, and it wouldn't be overly surprising if Kinberg was hoping to take charge of the project as he did Fantastic Four...with even more disastrous results. 

Ultimately, it seems a clash in visions was the problem here, and which party was to blame will likely remain a talking point for years to come (five years on and Josh Trank's Marvel movie is still widely discussed and debated). Now, The New Mutants is opening in the midst of a pandemic and, much to the relief of most fans, the rights to the X-Men are back with Marvel Studios. For those willing to risk a trip to the theater, they'll get to see the version of the movie Fox wanted to throw out before the Disney/Fox merger halted those plans. If that truly is Boone's vision, though, at least he's been able to share it...

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dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:34 PM


We already know this was mediocre, but this could have turned into the next Fant4stic and Justice League
WruceBayne
WruceBayne - 8/27/2020, 1:39 PM
@dracula - yeah we already knew all of this. Some of us got a nice trailer and thought those “reshoot” rumors were nonsense but I guess the proof is in the pudding.
marvel72
marvel72 - 8/27/2020, 1:43 PM
@dracula - Justice League is better than Fant4stic.
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:45 PM
@marvel72 - true, at least you can enjoy it
Blergh
Blergh - 8/27/2020, 1:45 PM
@marvel72 - a questionable honor
Blergh
Blergh - 8/27/2020, 1:46 PM
@dracula - loving the Buffyverse gifs btw.
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:48 PM
@Blergh - a perfect way to mock Ray Fisher and Zack Snyder

Plus Joss's shows are just great and quoteable, if you look, you can probably find a gif to fit any situation, in each of his shows
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:49 PM
@Blergh - Buffy is my second favorite show
bkmeijer2
bkmeijer2 - 8/27/2020, 3:43 PM
@marvel72 - not difficult. And also, I actually like JL
TheGrayGhost
TheGrayGhost - 8/27/2020, 3:52 PM
@dracula - Justice League isn't the favorite CBM of anyone here but it is not on the same level as Fant4stic

Fant4stic is the worst CBM of all time
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/27/2020, 1:35 PM
Woah...
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 8/27/2020, 1:36 PM
Edgy! Like... like... like
Razor Ramon!
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:36 PM
Well there goes any chance of the FoX-Men franchise getting a good send off, at least its better than Dark Phoenix. Thanks Jennifer Lawrence with your dumb demand to let the writer direct it
tmp3
tmp3 - 8/27/2020, 1:36 PM
No wonder the horror aspects look insanely generic and uninspired, it was never even intended to be a horror film lol
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:39 PM
@tmp3 - was intended to be a pg13 horror film before It Chapter 1 came out, but they never did get around to those reshoots, although not like blood and gore would make a movie good
tmp3
tmp3 - 8/27/2020, 1:40 PM
@dracula - No it wasn't, the piece says it was meant to be an R-rated John Hughes-esque film
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/27/2020, 1:39 PM
"They "delivered a roundelay of critiques, pointing out lapses in logic, deficits of humor, and underdeveloped characters." Still, Boone pushed back."

Josh Boone:
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:41 PM
Well if Marvel takes anything from this movie, get the costume designer, Magik’s arm alone looks cooler than any asgardian stuff in the thor movies
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/27/2020, 1:42 PM
@dracula -

The look of Kurse is underrated though. A shining jewel in a shitty movie.
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:44 PM
@BlackBeltJones - yeah. while its the worst thor film, as bad as captain marvel, id say it had the best production design, first film looked good, but personally felt it leaded too close to scifi, not enough to fantasy, and ragnarok was mostly just scifi
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/27/2020, 1:47 PM
@dracula - Thor hasn't felt fantasy since Thor 1
dracula
dracula - 8/27/2020, 1:52 PM
@BlackBeltJones - i men the production design, not the film itself, like Asgard looks nice in the first Thor movie, but the production design of Thor the dark world looks a lot more lived in,like sets you could see in a lord of the rings movie
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 8/27/2020, 2:01 PM
@BlackBeltJones - didn’t like his no personality demeanor but yeah the Predator/The Relic monster look is always cool. They should’ve taken more cues from them like slouching menacingly, not marching in like Jason or Nemesis on RE2
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/27/2020, 2:03 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - I agree
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 8/27/2020, 2:30 PM
@BlackBeltJones - Don't forget the Dark Elf armor.



These crazy mother[frick]ers turned dark elves into space Tolkeinian stormtroopers, and it totally works.
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/27/2020, 2:35 PM
@Spock0Clock - they were sufficiently creepy. We need more of them. More of the other realms in general
NathanielX
NathanielX - 8/27/2020, 4:32 PM
@BlackBeltJones - He feels like a mix of cheap tv and blockbuster level 🤔 they sould went with this style for the new Power Rangers.
inkniron
inkniron - 8/27/2020, 1:41 PM
Had the execs never seen Breakfast Club? There is plenty of crude humor and misogyny in that film. I mean, imagine that. Teenagers having crude and underdeveloped brains.
BigMikeReviews
BigMikeReviews - 8/27/2020, 1:48 PM
@inkniron -
inkniron
inkniron - 8/27/2020, 2:00 PM
@BigMikeReviews - What exactly am I supposed to be triggered about? I merely pointed out that he told them it was basically going to be an homage to a movie filled with misogyny and crude humor then they get upset that his first draft is filled with misogyny and crude humor.
BigMikeReviews
BigMikeReviews - 8/27/2020, 2:02 PM
@inkniron - Haha no the joke is that I was getting triggered, failed humor.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 8/27/2020, 2:03 PM
@inkniron - in this case the Triggered gif is the trigger
inkniron
inkniron - 8/27/2020, 2:05 PM
@BigMikeReviews - Then i retract, Sorry, carry on.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 8/27/2020, 2:42 PM
@BigMikeReviews - failed humor is funny in and of itself, very Michael Scott
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