Deadline brings word that 20th Century Fox has officially announced a new spin-off for their “X-Men” franchise with a feature adaptation of The New Mutants set to be directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars). Boone will pen the script along with Knate Gwaltney, the film will be produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg.
“We’re so excited to explore this new part of the X-Men universe,” Kinberg said. “And so excited to do it with Josh, who is uniquely suited to tell this story about young characters.”
This marks the third big adaptation for Boone, who is also set to adapt The Vampire Chronicles at Universal, based on the Anne Rice series of novels, as well as an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand for Warner Bros. Pictures
Created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod, The New Mutants first appeared in 1982 and focused on a group of teenage mutants as heroes in training. The series was home to a number of lower profile mutants in comparison to the fan favorite X-Men, such as Cannonball, Cypher, Magik, Wolfsbane, and Dani Moonstar. A number of A-list mutants also appeared in the series though such as Professor Xavier, Magneto, Kitty Pryde and Deadpool, the later of whom made his comic book debut in New Mutants #98. Some members of the team have also appeared in the films as recently as X-Men: Days of Future Past including Blink (Fan Bingbing), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), and Sunspot (Adan Canto), though it remains to be seen if they will appear in the film.
20th Century Fox has previously set a 2018 release date for an X-Men film, which could be this project.
