Last fall’s premiere of a trailer for The New Mutants seemed like it was official confirmation that the project would be in theaters in the near future, only for the film to be delayed by ten months from April of this year to February of next year, only to be pushed back to even further to August 2, 2019. Recent reports suggest that the film has been ambitious from the get-go, with reports surfacing that the original concept was to include a Marvel character fans have been waiting years to see in a live-action format: Warlock.
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The Tracking Board reports that Warlock was featured in early version of the film’s script, but the character and his abilities were deemed too expensive early on and future drafts omitted the character.
New Mutants was designed to offer audiences an all-new approach to Marvel characters, acting as more of a horror film within the world of mutants as opposed to a massive, action-packed blockbuster. This meant that Warlock had to be cut out early to keep the film within its minimalist restrictions.
Warlock wasn’t the only character teased in versions of the film, with some early incarnations of the movie featuring explorations of the Essex Corporation that was referenced at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse. This led to Jon Hamm playing Mr. Sinister in a post-credits tease, only for Fox to nix this character as well.
Last winter, New Mutants director Josh Boone teased that we could expect to see Warlock in a sequel, with the film slated to be merely the first chapter in a trilogy.
“We brought it to Fox as a trilogy of films, really all based on that long run by [Bill] Sienkiewicz, and kind of incorporates some stuff from later issues in the ’80s,” Boone shared at Comic Con Experience in Sao Palo, Brazil. “These are all going to be horror movies, and they’re all be their own distinct kind of horror movies. This is certainly the ‘rubber-reality’ supernatural horror movie. The next one will be a completely different kind of horror movie. Our take was just go examine the horror genre through comic book movies and make each one its own distinct sort of horror film. Drawing from the big events that we love in the comics.”
Fans will be waiting for quite some time to see Warlock’s big screen debut, with the possible purchase of Fox by Disney potentially complicating matters when it comes to what film in which he may appear.
The New Mutants hits theaters on August 2, 2019.
Do you wish Warlock was still in The New Mutants or would he be a better fit for a different film? Let us know in the comments below!
[H/T Tracking Board]
