The New Mutants Opens With $7 Million at the Box Office

The New Mutants, the X-Men movies series’s final installment, will open to $7 million at the box office. Despite being on the lower end of projections, $7 million still represents the biggest opening for a movie since theaters closed in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Disney says that 60-70% of movie theaters across the United States and Canada are now open, but some of the largest urban markets, including Los Angeles and New York City, remain closed. Even without the pandemic, The New Mutants had a troubled road to release, being delayed multiple times since it wrapped filming in 2017.

Critics haven’t been kind to The New Mutants. ComicBook.com‘s Charlie Ridgely called it a “forgettable end to Fox’s X-Men.”

“Regardless of its quality, The New Mutants will leave behind a complicated legacy, one that we will likely talk about years into the future for a multitude of reasons,” Ridgely writes in his review. “The New Mutants was always ‘the movie that would never be,’ and we will remember the saga of its journey. It’s a movie being force-fed to an audience in the middle of a pandemic when theaters aren’t actually all that safe, just because its new studio parent just wants to be rid of it. It’s in the middle of a social justice tug-of-war, guilty of whitewashing multiple roles but also featuring a compelling lesbian love story with its two central characters, the only comic book movie to ever do so… This ongoing saga of The New Mutants has been a long and dramatic one, and it’s a story that we’ll remember for quite a long time. The film itself, however, it’s simply forgettable.”

The New Mutants is directed by Josh Boone, from a script he co-wrote with Knate Lee based on characters created by Chris Claremont and Bob McCleod. The film stars Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga. Here’s the film’s synopsis:

“In this terrifying, action-fueled film based on the MARVEL comic series, five young people who demonstrate special powers are brought to a secret institution to undergo treatments they are told will cure them of the dangers of their powers. Included are Danielle Moonstar aka Mirage (Blu Hunt), who creates illusions from other people’s fears; Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), who transforms into the werewolf Wolfsbane; Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), who, as Cannonball, can fly at jet speeds protected by a force field; Roberto da Costa aka Sunspot (Henry Zaga), who absorbs and channels solar power; and Illyana Rasputin aka Magik (Anya Taylor-Joy). The younger sister of Colossus, Magik becomes encased in armor at will and wields a soulsword that amplifies her multiple superhuman and psychic abilities. Invited by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga) to share their stories about when their powers first manifested, the five “patients” come to understand that they are in a class of people called mutants, who have historically been marginalized and feared. As they relive their origin stories, their memories seem to turn into terrifying realities. Soon, they question what is real and what isn’t, and it becomes clear that the institution isn’t what it seems. Now the question is — why are they being held captive? And who is trying to destroy them? The tension and horror mount in this white-knuckle thrill ride directed by Josh Boone and co-written by Boone and Knate Lee.”

The New Mutants is now playing in theaters.