Disney's The New Mutants release date is pushed to April 2020. Twentieth Century Fox launched their X-Men movie franchise back in 2000, but it has since expanded greatly to include not only mainline films, but spinoff franchises like the Wolverine trilogy and the Deadpool series. One such spinoff is Josh Boone's The New Mutants, following the titular group of teenage mutants from the Marvel Comics. However, despite The New Mutants trailer debuting in late 2017, the movie has been pushed back a number of times.
Initially, The New Mutants was delayed so that the filmmakers could film reshoots and, reportedly, make the movie even scarier. The New Mutants already had more of a horror bent that any other X-Men movie, but Fox was said to be emboldened by the success of 2017 horror movies to make it even scarier. However, the New Mutants reshoots never happened, due to the deal between Disney and Fox wherein the Mouse House acquired the latter's film and TV assets, including all in-progress X-Men movies like Dark Phoenix and New Mutants. Now, despite The New Mutants being part of Disney's release slate at CinemaCon 2019, the studio has pushed back the film once again.
Disney revealed their updated release schedule today, announcing that The New Mutants will move from its most recent release date of Aug. 2 to April 3, 2020 - a full eight months later than expected. Currently, no other movies are scheduled for that early April release date. Previously, Warner Bros. slated its Cyborg solo movie for that window, but that film isn't part of the studio's current DC movie schedule. Further, the next Marvel Studios release arrives May 1, and another later in the year on Nov. 6.
Next year will be the first since 2016 that Disney only releases two Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but with New Mutants now opening in April, the studio will have three Marvel movies total in 2020. New Mutants is the last of Fox's X-Men movies and despite Boone's plans for New Mutants sequels it's unlikely the series will continue. Disney is rebooting the X-Men - with the exception of Deadpool - presumably so Marvel Studios can introduce the mutants into the MCU without worrying about maintaining continuity.
Unfortunately, that means Dark Phoenix is the final installment of the nearly two decades-old X-Men franchise, and New Mutants is poised to be a franchise non-starter. With so many delays, fans - and even the stars - began to wonder if New Mutants would ever release in theaters. There was some speculation Disney would forgo a theatrical release entirely and dump New Mutants on Hulu, but it appears that won't be the case. Fans interested in watching New Mutants at least now know when Disney plans to release it, though it remains to be seen if the reshoots will still take place. Given the delay, New Mutants reshoots seem likely.
So while The New Mutants is suffering another major release date delay, hopefully it means Disney is dedicated to releasing the best movie possible. Since The New Mutants will be the last of Fox's X-Men movies, hopefully the franchise will go out with a bang.
Source: Disney
