Considering the last story about reshoots on a Fox X-Men property it might be a good idea to take this one with a grain of salt, but it’s worth paying attention to anyway. Earlier today we learned that Fox had pushed back the release of New Mutants for a second time, even deeper into 2019 than it was previously. Along with that, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which was set to open in a few months, was also delayed into next year. Comicbook.com says they’ve heard a rumor that weeks of reshoots were ordered on Dark Phoenix after testing, which suggests the screenings did not go that well.
Now, as we’ve said a million times before, reshoots are totally normal. Most movies have them and nearly every blockbuster factors them in. However, they rarely amount to a delay of this magnitude, and that indicates a deeper issue.
As for New Mutants, the latest round of reshoots are to “add a few new characters to round out the movie, as well as make it scarier, overhauling the majority of the film.” That’s very different from what we had heard previously, that one character was being added to the movie. This sounds like Fox is very unhappy with Josh Boone’s horror approach to the mutant team.
Collider adds some meat to the bones of these rumors, reporting that as much as 50% of New Mutants is being reshot as Boone deals with some “creative differences” with the studio. With Dark Phoenix the reason for its delays are more positive, chocking it up to difficulty in wrangling the schedules of the A-list cast. If that’s the case then it isn’t such a big deal.
If there are problems with either movie it could become a factor if the Disney/Fox deal closes before they hit theaters. Disney could decide they don’t want to move forward and put both films on the shelf. That would be an extraordinary decision on their part and I doubt it would happen, but anything is possible at this point.
