New Mutants Director Confirms Connection to X-Men Movies

The status of the X-Men spinoff movie The New Mutants has long been in question, especially after the movie was delayed multiple times and plagued with rumors of reshoots. The film was originally supposed to be released before Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox was ever finalized, and because it was delayed there were rumors that Marvel Studios would be using the film as a way to kickstart the introduction of mutants in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But because the film was in production years before the acquisition was finalized, fans should expect an entirely different connection.

Director Josh Boone explained at a set visit over two years ago that The New Mutants was “absolutely an X-Men movie,” though the film stands on its own among the others in the long-running series of films.

“I’m sure in some world in the future, these things will all connect, but these movies will stand on their own,” Boone explained. “If you put all the X-Men kids from a PG-13 X-Men movie into Deadpool, it’d be a weird match. This is sort of the same way. I’d be interested to see how they were able to do that because the tone of ours is so different.”

The director also explained that there’s a major tonal difference between The New Mutants and films like Dark Phoenix because of this decide to allow movies to tell their own stories.

“There’s references and things that happen that are part of the greater whole, but we very much wanted it to tonally and aesthetically stand on its own,” Boone said. “It’s very grounded and very credible and because we shot it in a real location, it just will never look like a typical comic book movie where there’s a lot of green screen, and everything sort of looks like there’s a painted sheen of CGI across it. We’re really going for something not an indie movie, but a little more rough around the edges like that”

These comments were made before Marvel Studios and Disney came along, so there’s no telling just what changes were made before its premiere. However, Boone has made it clear that this is the movie he always intended to make, so it sounds like this could be the true finale in the X-Men movie franchise.

The New Mutants premieres in theaters on April 3rd.

[h/t Digital Spy]