EXCLUSIVE: An Animatic from the New Mutants Movie Lands Online!

20th Century Fox‘s New Mutants movie, like many other elements of the X-Men film franchise, remains a big question mark. Director Josh Boone was hired to helm the feature, which will boast a script by Boone & Knate Lee and Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, but no other official announcements have been made. Casting rumors pointed toward the faces we may be seeing, including Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) as Wolfsbane and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) as Magik a few months ago, but it has been relative radio silence on the film. Until now.

Sources close to the production of New Mutants have provided ComingSoon.net with new information on the project, including a storyboard animatic for a sequence for the film that confirms the main antagonist: the fan-favorite Demon Bear!

First appearing in New Mutants #3, the Demon Bear is (as his name might lead you to believe) a giant bear with immense strength that draws his power from negative human emotion. The beast is also capable of teleportation and corrupting souls.

Our sources indicate the feature will be a big departure from the sci-fi-action spectacle of other X-Men films and is instead being described as a “Stephen King meets John Hughes”-style horror movie. A comparison that might make people think of this summer’s hit series Stranger Things, albeit with even more super powers.

In addition, we’ve learned that New Mutants is being targeted for a spring 2018 release date and that the previously rumored casting is in fact accurate. There’s also another familiar face being eyed for the cast of the film with Nat Wolff (who starred in Boone’s The Fault in Our Stars) as the mutant Cannonball!

It remains to be seen if scenes like the one below will make it onto movie screens in 2018, but let us know your thoughts in the comments below!