Last week, New Mutants briefly popped up as a digital pre-order on Amazon before Disney yanked it (and some rebellious mid-level intern presumably lost their job). Josh Boone’s X-Men spinoff has suffered repeated delays, exacerbated by Disney’s acquisition of Fox. While many extremely reasonable people have suggested that Disney put the damn thing out of its misery and drop it on Hulu, sources at the studio would have THR believe that it still has every intention of releasing New Mutants in movie theaters—which may not be a regular thing for like, a whole year. Or less. No one really knows.
We haven’t seen a corporation absurdly commit to a bit with such futile determination since MoviePass. Just let it go, already! Release the Boone Cut of New Mutants, and release it on Hulu with all the other orphans from the Island of Misfit Fox/Disney Movies. Even if Disney released New Mutants in theaters in the near-ish future, it probably wouldn’t perform well enough in its opening weekend to justify the extra sterilization supplies required between screenings. Would you risk Nana’s life to see New Mutants, a movie that was filmed almost three years ago? To put this in deeper perspective: This is a movie where the pre-production, production, and post-production sections on its Wikipedia page are so lengthy that Josh Trank probably reads them to feel better about himself.
But sure, New Mutants is totally heading to theaters.