New Mutants director Josh Boone throws shade at Dark Phoenix

Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix had a rocky road leading up to its opening, and an even tougher one upon release. Now The New Mutants writer/director Josh Boone has revealed his feelings on the final entry in the mainline Fox X-Men franchise. (Via CBR)

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In an interview with Empire, Boone shared he had feelings of relief upon the second release date delay for his film from February 2019 to August the same year, a move made by the studio to avoid it having to compete with its fellow franchise ender but one he favors given the reception it got.

“Look, you can only go up after ‘Dark Phoenix,'” the director shared with Empire. “That’s not to say anything bad about the people involved, but it was what it was. Honestly, I feel less pressure now than I did ahead of [the first slated release date]. Because we’ve tested our movie so many times, and audiences have loved it.“

Kinberg’s film, which also marked his directorial debut, was a notorious flop upon release, garnering a low 23% approval rating from critics on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes and only earning $252.4 million on its $200 million production budget, causing 20th Century and now parent Disney to report losses between $100-200 million and the latter even saw a hefty stock drop as a result.

Boone’s horror-centric project has been delayed four times, with Fox initially doing so to avoid box office clashes with Deadpool 2 and Phoenix before pulling it from calendars amidst the Disney merger and was set to hit theaters on April 3, two years after its original schedule, before being pulled by Disney amidst global coronavirus concerns.

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20th Century Studios in association with Marvel Entertainment presents The New Mutants, an original horror thriller set in an isolated hospital where a group of young mutants is being held for psychiatric monitoring. When strange occurrences begin to take place, both their new mutant abilities and their friendships will be tested as they battle to try and make it out alive.

The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy (Split, The Witch) as Magik and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones, gen:LOCK) as Wolfsbane, with Henry Zaga (13 Reasons Why) as Sunspot, Blu Hunt as Dani Moonstar, and Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton as Cannonball.

The New Mutants adapts the monthly comic book series of the same name that launched in 1982. Created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod, The New Mutants follows on a group of teenage mutants as heroes in training in the Marvel Universe. The feature is expected to be a 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.

In November 2017, ComingSoon.net exclusively revealed a leaked concept animatic from the film, which features Wolfsbane, Magic, and Cannonball facing the Demon Bear.