New Mutants Director Wants to Warlock & Karma in Sequels

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New Mutants Director Wants to Introduce Warlock, Karma in Sequels

By Kevin Melrose

Published Oct 13, 2017

New Mutants director Josh Boone says that appearances by familiar faces, like Karma and Warlock, will have to wait for the sequels.

The first trailer for the horror-influenced New Mutants is filled with dread, jump-scares and a handful of familiar Marvel Comics characters in an entirely new setting. However, it noticeably lacked any connections to Fox's larger X-Men franchise and appearances by such fan-favorite students of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters as Karma and Warlock. It appears director and co-writer Josh Boone is saving those elements for the planned sequels.

Asked whether fans should expect to see in The New Mutants any X-Men introduced in the previous movies, Boone told IGN, "I can't ... there's some things I can't talk about. I can just say it is connected to and a part of the X-Men universe, and will continue to be a part of the X-Men universe and will be a part of that as it opens up in the next movies and all that."

"Every video complains online about characters that aren't in it right now," he explained. "I will say we're going to introduce new characters in the next movie as well. Characters like Karma and Warlock, and all that will be in future movies."

Boone revealed in December that he originally pitched Fox a New Mutants trilogy. As he reiterated to IGN, this first film draws inspiration from Marvel's New Mutants #18-31 and #35-38 -- the groundbreaking collaboration between Chris writer Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz -- but also by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the works of Stephen King, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

But while the film is influences by Claremont and Sienkiewicz's seminal "Demon Bear Saga," Boone clarified that the enormous demonic bear isn't the primary antagonist. "I'd just say it's very much inspired by that run on the comics," he said. "I wouldn't want to give away too much. Although I will say there's stuff you'll never see in the trailers that are big parts of the movie."

Arriving April 13, 2018, director Josh Boone's The New Mutants stars Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) as Wolfsbane, Henry Zaga (13 Reasons Why) as Sunspot, Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) as Cannonball, Anya Taylor-Joy (Atlantis) as Magik, Blu Hunt (The Originals) as Danielle Moonstar and Alice Braga (Queen of the South) as Dr. Cecilia Reyes.