Comic artist Bill Sienkiewicz say New Mutants movie has Marvel’s blessing

It looks like New Mutants is getting that elusive release after years on the shelf and has the blessing of Marvel, according to an award-winning comic book artist.

The New Mutants is a film project with bad karma but it is getting a reprieve after spending so much time gathering dust locked away somewhere. Fortunately, Marvel Studios did not forget about it after all, and a 2020 release is moving forward with their reported blessing.

This update comes from renowned Marvel artist Bill Sienkiewicz in a new interview. He recently appeared on director/comic writer Kevin Smith‘s podcast, Fatman Beyond, to talk about New Mutants. Making note of Disney’s merger with Fox, Sienkiewicz said it has “the blessings of Marvel”:

"“It looks like, because of the whole Disney-Fox — I don’t know if you want to call it merger, takeover, whatever… the Borg — it’s got the blessings of Marvel. And it feels more Marvel in terms of what they’re doing, but also the horror elements of the film are in place. It’s really, absolutely stellar, just what I’ve seen.”"

Sienkiewicz also mentioned he has seen the upgraded trailer and is really pleased with it:

"“Two days ago, I heard from Josh Boone, the director, and he sent me a new trailer. And they’ve been working, he’s been working on it and everything, and it is phenomenal. I got chills.”"

Bill Sienkiewicz has been an artist in the industry since he was 19. Working chiefly for Marvel, he illustrated such books as Moon Knight, The Fantastic Four, and the New Mutants comic back in the 1980s. At DC, he did the cover art for several Batman and Superman titles, along with Aquaman and Astro City. His artwork won him multiple Eagle and Eisner Awards — most notably in the latter case for Best Anthology (The Sandman: Endless Nights).

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Josh Boone revealed to New Mutants Updates on what looks like Instagram that the new trailer is coming in January. New Mutants Updates posted a screenshot of Boone’s comment to their Twitter page.

New Mutants was set for an April 2018 release, but Disney’s “Borg takeover” of Fox, reshoots, and problems with Dark Phoenix — Fox’s last X-Men franchise film under the old regime — delayed Josh Boone’s film over and over again. First, it was pushed back to February 2019 and then August 2019 before being pulled temporarily.

Stranger Things actor Charlie Heaton, speaking at For the Love of Sci-Fi, a convention in Manchester, England, assured attendees New Mutants is on the way, for real this time:

"“No, it’s coming out next year, but we filmed it almost two years ago. It’s the release [date] that’s been moved quite a while. If you don’t know, The New Mutants is like an X-Men spinoff. It was a comic book; Bill Sienkiewicz did it and it was an X-Men comic. It’s basically like a separate bunch of mutants. We shot this a while back and it’s been pushed because Fox has now merged with Disney.”"

Heaton plays Sam Guthrie who readers would know better by his code name Cannonball, a member of the New Mutants, later X-Force, and the X-Men proper. Other recognizable names comprising the cast are Wolfsbane (played by Game of Thrones alum Maisie Williams) and Sunspot (Henry Zaga). All three were members of the original team.

New Mutants’ new release date is April 3rd, 2020. Its story is reportedly based on the “Demon Bear Saga”, an arc Sienkiewicz helped writer Chris Claremont craft. And the rumor is the reshoots and edits change the tone to match the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We won’t know until, at least, the trailer drops.