Directed By: Josh Boone

Written By: Josh Boone & Kante Gwaltney and Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

Starring: Maisie Williams (Wolfsbane), Anya Taylor-Joy (Magik), Charlie Heaton (Cannonball), Blu Hunt (Dani Moonstar), Henry Zaga (Sunspot), Alice Braga (Dr. Cecilia Reyes)

Based On: The New Mutants #18-21 (1984) by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz

Release Date: April 13, 2018

The next X-Universe film has the potential to be the biggest departure for the franchise since Deadpool. New Mutants (or possibly X-Men: The New Mutants) will focus on an all-new team of teen mutants and the tone is gonna be straight-up Stephen King-style horror. Think Stranger Things meets X-Men: First Class, a comparison helped by the fact that Stranger Things alum Charlie Heaton is playing Kentucky-born good guy Cannonball.

For diehard comic fans, this movie is a big deal. New Mutants was the first official X-Men spinoff comic when it launched in 1983, and the characters have become some of the most beloved B-listers in the Marvel Universe. The young cast also has a crazy awesome pedigree: Game of Thrones (Williams), The VVitch (Taylor-Joy), 13 Reasons Why (Zaga), The Originals (Hunt), and the aforementioned Stranger Things (Heaton). Rounding out the cast is the lovable and weird techno-organic alien Warlock (a CG creation; a voice actor has not yet been announced) and, as some rumors suggest, James McAvoy as Professor X. Filming is currently underway, too; if you want a taste of what this movie will look like, you can see the young cast hanging out on Henry Zaga’s Instagram.

If you’re rolling your eyes at New Mutants similarity to ultra-hot Stranger Things, know that the series has legit ’80s horror cred. The story itself will be inspired by the New Mutants storyline “The Demon Bear Saga,” which was published in 1984, concurrent with all the pop culture that inspired Stranger Things. Tonally, this movie seems on point. You can watch an early animatic for one of the film’s proposed action scenes here.

Behind the camera is Josh Boone, the director of 2014’s The Fault in Our Stars. Boone, a New Mutants superfan, also did the first pass on the script, which was then handed over to Fault screenwriters Neustadter and Weber.