The New Mutants is a 2020 American superhero horror film based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name. It is a spin-off film in the X-Men film series and the thirteenth and final installment overall before the whole series was moved to Marvel. The film was directed by Josh Boone from a screenplay he wrote with Knate Lee, and it stars Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, Henry Zaga, and Adam Beach. In the film, a group of young mutants held in a secret facility fight to save themselves.
Boone and Lee first began work on the film after Boone completed The Fault in Our Stars (2014). The pair pitched a potential film trilogy to X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, and in May 2015 they were officially signed on to the project. Taylor-Joy and Williams were rumored to be cast in March 2016 and were confirmed over a year later when the rest of the cast filled out. Filming took place in Boston, Massachusetts, from July to September 2017, primarily at Medfield State Hospital, with an April 2018 release in mind. The film was then delayed while reshoots were planned and Disney began the process of acquiring production company 20th Century Fox. After the acquisition was completed, Boone returned to work on the film, and it was completed without reshoots in March 2020.
The New Mutants was theatrically released in the United States on August 28, 2020, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures via 20th Century Studios. The film received generally mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and bombed at the box office, grossing $49 million worldwide against its production budget of $67–80 million.
Plot
Danielle "Dani" Moonstar, a young Cheyenne Native American, is hidden in a tree by her father as her entire reservation is devastated by a tornado, leaving her the only survivor. After falling unconscious, Dani awakens in an oddly empty hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Reyes, who comforts Dani, explaining that she is not an ordinary human being but, rather, has unique mutant DNA, and she advises her to remain in the hospital until she learns the effects and how to control them.
Dani is introduced to four other teenagers; Samuel "Sam" Guthrie, Illyana Rasputin, Roberto "Bobby" da Costa and Rahne Sinclair. Reyes has brought each of them to the hospital, after they have each either experienced, or accidentally caused, a horrible tragedy. Sam collapsed an entire coal mine on his father and coworkers, killing them all, Roberto accidentally burned his girlfriend to death, Rahne escaped her devoutly Catholic village by killing the priest after he branded her as a witch, and Illyana was enslaved and sexually abused as a child. All of them also possess superhuman abilities due to mutations in their DNA; Roberto can manipulate solar energy, Sam can fly at jet speed, Illyana has inter-dimensional sorcery powers, and Rahne can turn into a wolf or wolf-human hybrid along with having enhanced senses. Reyes herself is also a powerful mutant who can manipulate "plasma-energy" force fields, preventing the five of them from leaving the facility.
Collectively, the five teenagers believe they are being trained to join the X-Men, hence the strict supervision. Reyes warns them that they are considered dangerous and should not leave until they have mastered their superhuman abilities. Dani attempts to escape, but is stopped by a force field surrounding the entire hospital grounds. She then plans suicide from the church clock-tower, but is prevented by Rahne. The two begin to form a romantic relationship, but Illyana antagonizes Dani, who discovers that Illyana has a hand puppet of a purple dragon called Lockheed. Soon, the group all begin to have horrifying real visions of their past tragedies, one of which results in Rahne getting branded on the neck by the same Priest whom she had previously killed. Both Illyana and Reyes deduce that the visions are the result of Dani's powers manifesting themselves: the ability to physically manifest fears, desires or other thoughts from a person's mind into reality as tangible illusions. Reyes consults her employers, the Essex Corporation, who instruct her to collect Dani's DNA and then euthanize her.