The film has been continually troubled. A lead actor was recast, a studio merger reset the behind the scenes landscape and determined the final film.
For a movie linked to a “curse,” “The New Mutants,” a troubled X-Men spin-off, is beating the cynics who predicted it would go straight to streaming on Disney+. Instead, after years when multiple opening dates were announced and quickly scratched and rescheduled, “The New Mutants” arrives with a wide IMAX opening Friday, the first major studio release to open theatrically since March’s coronavirus pandemic shutdown. The film has been continually troubled. A lead actor was recast, a studio merger reset the behind-the-scenes landscape and determined the final film. The pandemic means the nation’s two largest markets, New York City and Los Angeles, are not selling “New Mutants” tickets because no movie theaters will be open there. “The New Mutants” is an original story inspired by the early ’80s “New Mutants” comics. When production began in July 2017 with filming at Massachusetts’s abandoned Medfield State Hospital, this was a 20th Century Fox film.
