Everything you need to know about The New Mutants

From Digital Spy

Marvel and Warner Bros have detailed grand plans for their next few years of superhero movies, but in contrast, 20th Century Fox has been remarkably silent on what's coming for its own franchise, the X-Men.

The most visible of its upcoming projects are Logan and Ryan Reynolds's Deadpool 2, but another venture that seems to be gaining headway is The New Mutants.

Styled in some places (although not officially) as X-Men: The New Mutants, the film will be based on the longstanding spinoff comic dealing with Professor X's younger class of superhumans.

So step aside, Cyclops. Jog on, Jean Grey. There's a new set of mutants on the block.

The New Mutants movie release date: Fox's slowest heroes

2018 was set to be a bumper year for Fox's superheroes, with New Mutants scheduled to arrive ahead of Deadpool 2 and X-Men: Apocalypse sequel Dark Phoenix.

But New Mutants' release date of April 13, 2018 has had a major slippage, and has now been delayed until February 22, 2019, which indicates that the film will be undergoing a massive overhaul.

Deadpool 2 has been pushed up from June 1 to May 18, with Dark Phoenix still set for November 2.

New Mutants began shooting in July 2017 and was completed in September, but don't be surprised if reshoots are reported in the near future.

The New Mutants trailer: Haunted house

The first trailer is here, and it's following Logan's lead and leaning hard on another non-action genre. Not Westerns this time, but horror.

Our young mutants are inmates in some kind of creepy asylum. Cue some spooky goings on – although not too much plot.

The New Mutants movie cast: Freshers week

As official announcements have been almost zero, we don't have a huge list of character castings yet, but a few seem to have come to light without Fox's involvement.

Early reports said that Charles Xavier would appear in the film. Actress Anya Taylor-Joy corroborated this by revealing that her Split co-star James McAvoy would make his fourth outing as the team's psychic leader/head teacher (rather than Patrick Stewart, who is expected to make this year's Logan his last time in the role), although other rumours have denied this.

As it happens, Taylor-Joy was also rumoured to be appearing in the film as Illyana Rasputin – aka Magik – the sister of X-Men mainstay Colossus – alongside Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams as lycanthropic shapeshifter Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane. Both were confirmed for the film in May 2017.

13 Reasons Why star Henry Zaga is playing Brazilian mutant Roberto da Costa/Sunspot. Another new Netflix breakout star is joining him – Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton is playing Sam Guthrie/Cannonball.

The Originals' Blu Hunt is on board as Danielle Moonstar, a Native American mutant known alternately as Mirage or Psyche.

Daredevil star Rosario Dawson was in discussions to play Cecilia Reyes, a medical doctor with defensive shield powers, but dropped out in favour of Elysium actress Alice Braga.

X-Men: Apocalypse actress Alexander Shipp – who played Storm – is also said to be returning, although Michael Fassbender's Magneto is apparently off the table.

On the other side of the camera is the aforementioned Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) – something that we actually do know definitely and officially.

The New Mutants movie plot: New kids on the block

From Boone's activity on social media, it looks like he will be sticking closely to the classic New Mutants lineup – that's Wolfsbane and the teleporting sorcerer Magik, alongside Cannonball (who can explosively propel himself through the air), Karma (a telepath who can possess other people), Sunspot (a super-strong mutant powered by the sun) and Mirage (who can create illusions based on the hopes and fears of others).

The team was introduced in 1982 as a sort of replacement for the original X-Men, who had started as teen heroes in the '60s but grown older in the intervening decades. But the first trailer has turned that on its head, swapping the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters with a sinister asylum adjoining a graveyard full of nameless tombstones.

Related: Who are the New Mutants? A guide to the new X-Men spinoff

Boone emphasised his different approach to the material than previous X-Men films.

"We are making a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe," he told EW. "There are no costumes. There are no supervillains. We're trying to do something very, very different."

It sounds very much that Fox are continuing to follow the trend set by Deadpool and Logan of thinking outside of the superhero box. Fox CEO Stacey Snider compared New Mutants to The Breakfast Club AND The Shining. We're so up for this.

The aforementioned animated snippet shows the team going up against a classic New Mutants villain called the Demon Bear, a psychic monster connected to Mirage and her Native American heritage.

There's no sign of it in the trailer, but one of the many teasers hints that it will have a part to play.

Boone has teased that we may even get a trilogy of New Mutant adventures if the film ever comes out everything goes to plan.

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