First there were X-Men, now there are New Mutants.
An animatic storyboard from the in-development X-Men franchise spin-off, New Mutants has been revealed hinting at the movie’s storyline and main antagonist. It shows members of the team: Magik (with the alien dragon Lockheed), Cannonball, Wolfsbane, and Mirage facing off with a giant mystical grizzly. A challenge the D-List contestants of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here actively avoid by dining on fish eyes and kangaroo testicles.
New Mutants is set to be different from the usual sci-fi superhero fare being described by producer Simon Kinberg as a ‘Stephen King meets John Hughes’ type-movie. Still, to arrive at the mythical destination named ‘Originality’ the movie will have to walk the long road of tired clichés: love triangles, creepy kids, self-doubt, massive battles, world saving, and ever so witty dialogue. The worst possible outcome is that New Mutants could end up as daringly original and awfully unwatchable as Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot.
Created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod, the New Mutants starred in a self-titled comicbook from 1983 to 1991. Starting out as merely a younger group of mutants training at the Xavier School: Sunspot (Roberto da Costa; solar powered strongman), Cannonball (Sam Guthrie; invulnerable human rocket) , Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair; werewolf in all but name), Mirage (Danielle ‘Dani’ Moonstar; psychic projector) and Magik (Illyana Rasputin; teleporter and part demon queen of Limbo) had to prove themselves to be more than X-Babies before they amassed a following of unforgiving teens and tweens. The series set itself apart from every other comic featuring mutants by raising the weirdness factor to eleven, and sending the team to uber exotic locales: demonic dimensions, alternate futures and an ancient Roman civilization in the middle of the Amazon. Destinations which are no longer available via Jet2Holidays.
As with all superheroes, the New Mutants have a popular storyline that fans would love to see adapted for the big screen, and the animatic storyboard suggests that fans of the mutants will be very pleased. ‘The Demon Bear’ story ran from issue 18 to 20 and followed Mirage as she finally confronted the Bear-which had been causing her to suffer horrific visions for some time-in the wake of her parents’ disappearance. The initial confrontation didn’t go to well, and the rest of the New Mutants end up battling the Demon Bear in its home dimension; a twisted version of the ‘Wild West.’ Every evil Care Bear has to live somewhere.
New Mutants is set to begin filming in early 2017 but a release date is yet to be confirmed. Josh Boone is attached to direct from a script by a small army of writers, and the film is rumoured to star: Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) and Nat Wolff (The Fault In Our Stars).
