Deadline reports that Fox has reached a deal with Josh Boone, director of The Fault in Our Stars, to co-write and direct The New Mutants, a direct spinoff of Fox’s X-Men films. Boone will co-write with Knate Gwaltney and Simon Kinberg will produce with Lauren Shuler Donner.
The New Mutants comic series features a group of teenage mutant superheroes-in-training, first appearing in 1982’s Marvel Graphic Novel #4. Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Bob McLeod, it ran for eight years and introduced everyone’s favorite Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool. Further series have been released in subsequent years, focusing on the students at Xavier’s school for the gifted from the original X-Men series. It will be very interesting to see what mutants make up the team and what other mutants will make appearances.
Boone came out of the Hollywood ether to direct The Fault in Our Stars, based on the John Green novel of the same name. The film raked in over $307 million worldwide and solidified Shailene Woodley as a leading lady and brought Ansel Elgort and Nat Wolff to the forefront as emerging stars. Boone has been mentioned as one of the directors inline for the next Spiderman reboot, and has also been linked to adaptations of Stephen King novels The Stand and Lisey’s Story.
His next film, however is another adaptation, this time of the Ann Rice novels, Interview with the Vampire. Starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, Interview with the Vampire: Vampire Chronicles is still in the early stages of development. That means that The New Mutants will probably be a ways off, more than likely being released after X-Men: Apocalypse.
The New Mutants is in the very early stages of development and it would be shocking to see it in theaters any time before 2018. In the meantime, to quench your need for mutants, Fox is releasing Deadpool on February 12, 2016 with X-Men: Apocalypse coming on May 16, 2016. The film studio also has another Wolverine film lined up, with star Hugh Jackman saying it’s his last as the clawed hero, and a Gambit standalone film starring Channing Tatum coming further down the line.
