Following the success of his 2014 film, The Fault in Our Stars, writer/director Josh Boone had the opportunity to bring to life one of his favourite comic book series, The New Mutants. Working with his lifelong friend Knate Lee, Boone would make the film for 20th Century Fox, then the stewards of Marvel’s X-Men franchise and all its associated tie-ins, including The New Mutants.
From there, one of the most difficult developments in recent film history would follow: Disney’s purchase of Fox significantly delayed the movie’s release.
When The New Mutants was finally released in the summer of 2020, the world was deep in the COVID-19 pandemic. That didn’t stop me heading out to the theatre with BBP! alum Scotty G to see the movie in a socially-distanced setting. After all the years of delays and development, and as a longtime New Mutants fan, when the movie was done, I was genuinely happy with what Josh got on screen. His casting choices, especially Anya Taylor-Joy’s Magik and Maisie Williams as Rhane Sinclair, were spot on, and the John Hughes-Wes Craven vibe often worked. I remember getting on the phone with my friend on my way home from the theatre, happy (and relieved) to tell him how much I enjoyed his movie.
Years later, my kid and fellow BBP! contributor Anya discovered the film for themselves, thanks to their love of Stranger Things and Charlie Heaton, who plays Jonathan on the show and Sam Guthrie/Cannonball in The New Mutants. In fact, this past Christmas, Josh gifted Anya with the ultimate present – his and Knate Lee’s original script for The New Mutants.
Now, in his latest Substack post, Josh Boone takes us on his journey from comic book fan to the director of what should have been a new franchise, and shares pages from the pitch deck he and Lee created, highlighting the (freaking fantastic) vision they had for The New Mutants. A trilogy that would have culminated with Inferno??? Come on, that would have been worth the price of admission. Josh’s Substack makes it clear that he and Knate knew these characters extremely well and had a concept that would have given us something new and unique, while still playing in familiar territory.
With rumours heating up of the return of at least one of the film’s leads, Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, now is the perfect time to delve into this (demon) bear of a creative saga. What if, indeed.
