The New Mutants is apparently still on track to hit theaters on August 28th, even as Tenet and Mulan face indefinite delays.
Details on the film’s theatrical plans come from The New Mutants’ panel at ComicCon@Home, the digital version of the annual San Diego festival, where the cast gathered to talk about the film. The panel opens with a cheeky reminder the movie would open in theaters on August 28th. They also brought the movie’s opening scene, which can be seen above. The opening scene kicks in at 24:10, with a panel discussion about the movie playing beforehand.
Fans seemed to anticipate that Disney would move The New Mutants to a digital release in light of recent delays. Warner Bros. delayed Tenet indefinitely earlier this week and, at the same time as The New Mutants panel, Disney announced that Mulan was also delayed indefinitely. Everything seemed to point to The New Mutants also having its date shifted or moving to a digital-first title. Disney has already moved three of its movies from being theatrical releases to Disney Plus exclusives: Artemis Fowl, The One and Only Ivan, and Hamilton.
But, nope. Based on the new trailer, Disney is still saying The New Mutants will hit theaters. That’s if theaters are open, of course. AMC Theaters announced today that it’s delaying its reopening into mid- to late-August. That was going to coincide with Tenet, Mulan, and The New Mutants playing, but now it’s just The New Mutants. Bizarre!
It’s still hard to believe that The New Mutants is an actual movie after all these years of production delays and questions about its existence. Fox initially made plans to develop the film all the way back in 2015, with the goal of going into production in 2016. Everything seemed fine — at first.
Filming finished in September 2017, but by January 2018, Fox had delayed the film’s release to February 2019. Fox reportedly didn’t want Deadpool 2 and New Mutants to compete with one another in May. A few months later, The New Mutants was delayed again. Finally, The New Mutants was slated to be released on April 3rd, 2020, but due to the pandemic, it was pushed back one more time to August 28th.
Now, if the theaters don’t open, New Mutants could be delayed further. Who knows? Everything is up in the air, but hey, at least there’s a new trailer.
