Director Josh Boone has revealed that Alexandra Shipp’s Storm was originally going to appear in a major role in The New Mutants before the changes.
Director Josh Boone has revealed that Alexandra Shipp’s Storm was originally going to appear in a major role in The New Mutants before changes were made. Boone’s seemingly cursed movie will finally be released to theaters next month following years of delays and turmoil. Part of the delays were caused by Disney’s acquisition of Fox, while other delays were caused by a shift in strategy for Fox’s X-Men team following the reception for recent X-Men movies.
The New Mutants will follow a group of five young mutants who are being held in a secret facility. Early trailers sold the film as a horror, but recent footage makes it look more action-filled than a traditional horror movie. The movie features a host of young movie and TV stars, including Blu Hunt, Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Heaton. Alice Braga, who will appear in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad next year, also appears, as Dr. Reyes, the woman responsible for taking care of the children at the facility.
Now, Boone has revealed that in an early draft of the script Shipp’s Storm would have taken on the role that Braga now inhabits. Speaking to Slashfilm, Boone says that the original plan was to have the movie take place in the 1980s, and the timeline would have intersected with that of X-Men: Apocalypse, in which Shipp’s version of Storm was introduced. However, when that movie failed and a new studio head came in, they changed the setting to the present. This led to Boone rewriting the role and not including Storm in the movie. You can read the full quote below.
“We had early drafts that were supposed to be in the same timeline as Apocalypse, so it was originally going to be set in the ’80s. Originally, Professor X and Storm were in it, and Storm very much played the Alice Braga role. Over the course of months, a new studio head came in, they said they didn’t want any X-Men movies to take place in the past anymore, as if that was the reason that Apocalypse was bad.”
Boone’s comments make it clear that The New Mutants has struggled to find a place in the X-Men universe since its inception. While some of the movie’s troubles are well-documented, it’s now clear that they began well before cameras even rolled. However, given that Disney now owns the X-Men, the lack of any previous characters from the universe has turned out to be a boon for the movie.
While it’s been reported in the past that at one point Storm and Professor X had cameos in The New Mutants, Boone’s comments make it sound like she had more than that. Braga’s role, at least judging by the trailers released so far, seems to be a pivotal one in the movie, and certainly more than a cameo. One could also speculate about how much of the character’s role changed from the first draft to the current iteration.
If Storm was meant to be the character taking care of the mutants originally, were they being held in the X Mansion? And if so, were they being held against their will? Moreover, could this be a sign that Dr. Reyes has mutant powers too? Boone unfortunately doesn’t mention just how much was carried over from Storm to Dr. Reyes, but the potential implications are interesting.
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DANIEL GILLESPIE
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Contact Information:
DANIEL GILLESPIE
