New Mutants director thinks it might be "the hardest PG-13 ever made"
When the trailer for Fox’s superhero-centric Marvel film New Mutants dropped back in October last year, we were impressed by the studio’s commitment to turning the X-Men spinoff into a full-on horror film. Of course, that was promptly followed by Fox pushing the release back an entire year.
While the reasons for pushing back the movie seem to have everything to do with corporate synergy (wanting to avoid superhero overlap with Deadpool 2 being in theaters at the same time, specifically) and nothing to do with quality, it still means that it’s going to be a long time until we can see the final product of Josh Boone’s very unusual superhero project. In the meantime, however, he’s spoken to the print edition of Empire magazine (as reported by Comic Book Movie), and the director has explained that, while the movie may not be Logan-esque levels of blood, swearing, and other R-rated content, it’s about as close as he could get it:
This movie is probably the hardest PG-13 ever made. I mean, we’ve pushed it. The horror is pretty dark, but there’s also an emotional core, too. If I can scare you and make you cry: that’s the goal.
In addition to wanting to watch you cry like a little kid who’s just had their stuffed animal ripped from their hands, Boone also explains a little more of what sets New Mutants apart from the usual superhero fare. The trailer made clear they wouldn’t be wearing any costumes—“That alone makes it different,” he notes—but also, it’s just the level of psychological damage suffered by these kids. “They can’t be with the other kids at the X-Mansion. They’re too fucked up. They’ve all killed people, whether intentionally or unintentionally.” If you want to see a grainy new image copied from Empire Magazine, you can click over and check it out, but it looks to have been sliced in half and reprinted without great resolution. Meaning you’re probably better off just watching the trailer again. We’ve got a long way to go until February 22, 2019, after all.