More bad news for New Mutants! Its release date recently suffered a second delay. Read on for some intriguing details about the movie and its behind-the-scenes drama.
The Tracking Board reported that the Josh Boone flick was set to introduce Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as Nathaniel Essex/Mister Sinister. His post-credits cameo was filmed during the movie's production last year, but 21st Century Fox subsequently opted to just scrap the iconic role and use a different villain. We don’t know who their planned replacement baddie will be, but we’ve heard that Antonio Banderas (Mask of Zorro) will play the part.
According to the same report, Mr. Sinister wasn't the only New Mutants character to go. Original superhero team member Warlock showed up in early drafts of the script, but he soon disappeared because the studio decided that bringing the cybernetic, shape-shifting alien to life would be too expensive.
Script-writing credit went to Boone and his longtime collaborator Knate Lee, but certain insiders have suggested that they actually collaborated with a committee that included screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber (The Disaster Artist); Josh Zetumer (Patriots Day); Chad and Carey Hayes (The Conjuring); and Seth Grahame-Smith (Dark Shadows). Six additional writers were tasked with simply generating ideas.
The Tracking Board mentioned that Boone and Lee originally wanted the X-Men spin-off to be a straight-up horror movie, but Fox immediately nixed that concept in favor of a young-adult movie with a PG-13 rating. Boone complied, but the movie It was so successful that the studio reconsidered its stance and ordered a new version that would go full horror.
According to the report, the second half of New Mutants is for the most part complete, but the first half will require extensive reshoots. It’s a mess, but insiders believe that the movie isn’t a lost cause. Rather, it's fixable, and the studio is going to great lengths to fend off a Fantastic Four-like disaster.
