By Jim Frye
Get ready for a completely different kind of super hero movie!
Today, Disney released brand-new posters and a teaser video to get audiences ready for The New Mutants, which opens in theaters August 28, 2020. The posters are for Dolby Cinema and Cinemark XD. The first poster reads, “Discover it in Dolby Cinema,” while the Cinemark XD poster says, “Power this big can’t be contained.” You can watch the teaser video, which introduces each of the new characters in just 60 seconds, here:
In the film, four teenage mutants are held in an isolated psychiatric hospital for monitoring—Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga). Keeping a watchful eye over them is Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga), who believes the mutants are dangerous to both themselves and to society. The arrival of newcomer Danielle “Dani” Moonstar (Blu Hunt) signals the beginning of strange occurrences, hallucinations, and an eventual battle for their lives.
The New Mutants, from 20th Century Studios in association with Marvel Entertainment, is an original horror thriller inspired by a spin-off of Marvel’s X-Men comic series. It has a darker, scarier tinge than most super hero films. Each of the five main characters has suffered some sort of trauma, and writer/director Josh Boone wanted to be sure the young characters were different from those personified onscreen in previous X-Men films, all released by 20th Century Studios.
“Although we incorporate similar themes from the comics, this is very much its own unique story,” says Boone. “Though there are references to the X-Men, and our characters know who the X-Men are, this a stand-alone world where if you took these characters and tried to place them in another X-Men movie, they would seem like outsiders.”
When the story begins, the five protagonists are fragile and confused kids, and by the end of the film they have all become the New Mutants. “The New Mutants is very much a coming-of-age story about young adults accepting what’s happened in their pasts so they can move forward into the future,” says producer Karen Rosenfelt (the Twilight saga). “We all have a history and past that we have to move beyond, and within this story we wanted to embrace that narrative that provides a strong emotional spine.”
The young mutants at the heart of this story are trying to come to grips with their emerging mutant abilities while at the same time taking on real issues that all teenagers face, but they’re able to deal with their issues and problems together. “We wanted it to be a horror story, one that relayed the true horrors of being a teenager in search of themselves,” says Boone. “Horror movies are a great escape, because you can go to the movie theaters and deal with all the anxiety you don’t want to think about when you are lying in bed at night staring up at the ceiling. It’s like a healthy way to go through all that.”
The New Mutants opens in theaters Friday, August 28, 2020. Advance tickets are available now.
Here are the two new posters:
