‘The New Mutants’ Secures Another Release Date, Aims To Hit Theaters This Summer
For directorJosh Booneand all the people involved with Fox’s superhero filmThe New Mutants, the past few years must have felt like they were caught in an episode ofTheTwilight Zone. The same cycle has occurred over and over again: a new release date for the film is announced, a flurry of marketing materials is released, and then, inevitably, the date is pushed back for one reason or another.
Now the cycle is beginning again: a new theatrical release date for the movie has been announced. Will it actually happen this time?
The New Mutants Release Date
The film’s official Twitter account shared a new poster this morning, which reveals that the movie is aiming to hit theaters onAugust 28, 2020.
Let’s set aside the fact that a movie can’t be “back” if it never arrived in the first place, and instead turn our attention to that release date. It’s probably not a coincidence thatThe New Mutantsrelease date was released today, one day after reports circulated that Los Angeles County would be extending its shelter-at-home orders for at least the next three months. Three months from now will be the end of August, soThe New Mutantsis aiming to be there to greet audiences with open arms. Lots of people have been clamoring for this to go straight to Disney+, but it’s clear that Disney/Fox thinks there’s serious money to be made with a superhero offering in theaters – even a relatively small scale one like this.
Whether or not Christopher Nolan’sTenetwill open in July is still an open question, but it seems unlikely that Warner Bros. will open the movie when Los Angeles County makes up a huge percentage of America’s box office intake. (Same goes for the Russell Crowe thrillerUnhinged, which hilariously announced yesterday that it was swooping in to try to stealTenet’s thunder and become the first movie to reopen wide on July 1.)
TheTwilight Zonequality ofThe New Mutantsexperience has extended beyond all of this release date chaos. The film has been the subject of rumors about ratings, reshoots, and studio interference, but apparently, lots of those conversations seem to have been overblown. Boone has said the movie wasalways intendedto be PG-13, those much-discussed reshootsnever actually happened, and hisoriginal cutis the one that’s coming to theaters.
The New Mutantswill (hopefully) hit theaters on June 15, 2025…but if L.A. County’s shelter-in-place orders are extended beyond that, I’m expecting this to get moved yet again.
