Fox's New Mutants Was Pitched As a Movie Trilogy

CBR

By Kevin Melrose

Published Dec 17, 2016

"The Fault of Our Stars" director reveals his love for the "Demon Bear Saga," and how he explained his vision to studio executives.

A lifelong comic book fan, "The Fault of Our Stars" director Josh Boone went to Fox executives with an idea for not a single "New Mutants" film but an entire trilogy, laying it out for them using -- what else? -- a comic.

Speaking with Creative Screenwriting, Boone revealed that he and co-writer, and longtime friend, Knate Gwaltney had loved Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz’s acclaimed "Demon Bear Saga," and even created their own comic books as children. " It was really dark, interesting," he said, "and different from the typical X-Men stories that we had read."

"After I made 'The Fault in Our Stars,' we made Fox a comic book," he continued. "It walked them through a trilogy of 'New Mutant' films that would build on each other. We used this program called Comic Life, and took all the images we had loved from the series and strung them together to show them the movie we wanted to do. We brought it to Simon [Kinberg, X-Men franchise producer] and he really liked it. We’ve been going for the past year and a half to get it ready, and I’m about to go location scout and we have a release date now."

Boone also referred to "The Fault in Our Stars" screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who were hired in August to pen a new draft of the film while he and Gwaltney turned their attention to another project.

"New Mutants" is expected to feature a classic team lineup that includes Mirage, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Cannonball, Magik and Warlock, who play central roles in the three-issue "Demon Bear" arc and its immediate aftermath.

A report surfaced earlier this month that Fox plans to begin production this summer in Montreal on a new X-Men film, which Boone all but confirmed is "New Mutants."

Progress on the spinoff comes amid reports that the studio plans to reboot its X-Men franchise following the disappointing performance this year of "X-Men: Apocalypse." Kinberg will reportedly continue to oversee the series as executive producer, and is writing the new film while keeping stars Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult in mind. However, it should be noted all of the actors have reached the end of their three-picture deals with Fox.

The next film in the series is director James Mangold's “Logan,” which marks Hugh Jackman's final appearance as Wolverine. It arrives in theaters on March 3, 2017.