While 20th Century Fox is readying the release of Deadpool 2, fans of the X-Men franchise had their hopes up for the upcoming New Mutants film as well as X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which were set for release later this year. This week Fox announced that the two X-Men films would be moved further out with Dark Phoenix hitting theatres in February of 2019 and New Mutants coming to the big screen in August of 2019. Why the shift in release dates? Especially when New Mutants was originally scheduled for release on April 13th of this year and then already moved to February of 2019? We’ve got all the details here.
Collider has reported that the shift for X-Men: Dark Phoenix occurred due to the need for reshoots on the film. Something that shouldn’t be too much of a worry. Reshoots are usually planned for any big budget film and are just common place. But with the all star cast of James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain, all of whom are incredibly busy actors, the scheduling of the reshoots had to be pushed to August of this year. Which would not have given the post production team enough time to get the film ready for its November release. As of now this all looks like it’s well intentioned. Fox and Director Simon Kinsberg were able to convince McAvoy, Lawrence and Fassbender to come back for the film, even though their contracts were up, which means there must be something good waiting for us.
Collider also goes on to say that New Mutants is being pushed further back due to the need for reshoots, however that film is changing significantly. Originally the film was moved from an April release to February to add a new character to the film and make the film more of a horror film. After some initial reshoots were done and the film was screened Fox has decided they want to reshoot almost half of the film in order to make it much more of a horror film than it’s already become. Fox is pushing big time to use the X-Men Universe to diversify the Superhero landscape, and that’s not a bad thing. What was considered a risk in Deadpool became evidence that Superhero films could be more than a team of heroes trying to stop a big villain attempting to take over the world. The films can be more personal and can be told in different ways. For now if Fox is wanting to head down a new path with New Mutants, it may not be a bad idea.
We’ll see if things go smoothly from here with each of these films. Right now these shifts in release dates seem to be for good reason and as long as everyone involved is on board then we should get two really amazing X-Men films. Which is something all of us fans should want.
Keep following Poor Man’s Spoiler for more updates on New Mutants and X-Men: Dark Phoenix leading up to their respective release dates.
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