While The New Mutants — Josh Boone's upcoming film about a younger group of heroes, set in the X-Men cinematic universe — remains in seemingly eternal limbo, new photos have surfaced revealing how the film will depict Limbo itself. The film was produced by 20th Century Fox and was initially set to be released in early 2018, but it met with several delays, and then Fox's purchase by Disney set it back further. But it looked on track to be released last month before COVID-19 forced another delay, and now the movie doesn't even have a release date.
Luckily, that hasn't stopped us from finding out more about the film, and now we have our first glimpse of Limbo, the dark dimension from which the character Magik draws some of her powers. Magik, played in the film by actress Anya Taylor-Joy, is the younger sister of the X-Men's Colossus, and her real name is Illyana Rasputin. Like most of the other characters in the film, she first appeared in Marvel Comics in the early 1980s and was co-created by legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont.
The new image of Limbo from the film was first revealed in the latest issue of Cinefex; a magazine focused on visual effects in film and TV. It shows Magik seemingly about to step through a portal to Limbo, which is the source of her teleportation powers. These powers were first introduced by Claremont and artists John and Sal Buscema in issues of Uncanny X-Men, The New Mutants, and a four-issue Magik miniseries, all published in the early 1980s.
The specific plot of the film is expected to be primarily based on the classic 1984 storyline "The Demon Bear," published in The New Mutants issues 18, 19, and 20. Written by Claremont and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz, "The Demon Bear" is widely regarded to have changed the visual language and style of comics forever. The new surrealist art style Sienkiewicz developed on the direct-market-only Moon Knight had finally reached newsstands (and a mainstream audience) in the pages of The New Mutants.
As for when we might finally see the film that these stunning new images come from, it remains to be seen. Some are calling for it to just release straight to a streaming service, but there are no definitive plans in either direction. But the young cast, who shot The New Mutants three years ago, already looks significantly older in real life than they do in footage and press images of the movie. That appearance gap will only widen as the delays continue.
Source: Cinefex