No, ‘The New Mutants’ Didn’t Get Reshoots After the Disney-Fox Merger and Here’s Why They Wouldn’t Have Happened
The upcoming Marvel film, The New Mutants, was the subject of a rumor that never stopped getting reported. It was consistently claimed that the film would get reshoots for multiple different reasons. However, in a new interview, star Maisie Williams and director Josh Boone confirm not only that the reshoots never happened but also why the idea never made sense.
‘The New Mutants’ had a rough road to the big screen
The Marvel film was set to be released via 20th Century Fox, as the characters were owned by Fox and not Disney like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It would be a standalone, spinoff film of the greater X-Men Universe at Fox. It was also stated that the film would have a horror tone. There were some differences between director Josh Boone’s initial version and the one that had been set up during production, but the horror tone remained after seeing the box office success of It.
The first trailer for the film was released on October 17, 2017. In January 2018, the film got pushed a year back to February 2019, and reportedly reshoots were taking place to make the film more “frightening.” In March 2018, the film got moved to August 2019, with reshoots reported to be more “extensive” and Fox reportedly wanting up to half of the film to be reshot.
After the Disney-Fox merger in March 2019, the film was still planned for release via what’s now known as 20th Century Studios, though the current film incarnation X-Men would probably be redone and rebooted after the film was released. It was reported that no reshoots had yet to take place and that the film may get its theatrical release scrapped and instead bow on Disney+ or Hulu. A couple of months later, it got the release date pushed back to April 3, 2020, its final release date.
Aside from the reshoot talk, fans and critics called out whitewashing in the show’s casting of two of its characters, Roberto da Costa / Sunspot (portrayed by Henry Zaga) and Dr. Cecilia Reyes (portrayed by Alice Braga). Both characters are portrayed as Afro-Latinx in the comics but are portrayed by non-black actors Saga and Braga in The New Mutants. Afro-Latinx actress Rosario Dawson was once attached to play Reyes in the film.
The film’s director responds to the long-running rumors
The New Mutants also stars Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin / Magik, Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie / Cannonball, and Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar / Mirage.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly Boone and Williams spoke candidly about all the reshoot claims and why they could have never happened from the jump.
“Everybody said we did reshoots! We’ve never done reshoots. And I’ll tell you this: if there hadn’t been a merger, I’m sure we would’ve done reshoots the same way every movie does pickups. We didn’t even do that because by the time the merger was done and everything was settled, everybody’s older,” said Boone.
Williams added, “The movie is exactly the movie we set out to make. I was nervous when they were talking about reshooting or re-editing that it was gonna be very different, but honestly, it’s exactly what we set out to do.” It was a sometimes aggravating situation with the only information she heard about the film coming from news headlines. “I would be in press for something else and then [reporters would] ask me about [The New Mutants] and the last thing I heard was, ‘Nothing until we know something.’”
The New Mutants will be in theaters on April 3, 2020.
