Disney's The New Mutants has unexpectedly become one of 2020's most important movies. It's an ironic turn of events, to put it mildly. The film will serve as the final X-Men project developed by Fox prior to Disney's acquisition of their entertainment assets in 2019, and was originally scheduled to open as far back as April 2018, before later being delayed for reshoots that, in the end, never happened. It has since been postponed three more times over the last few years and is now scheduled to arrive in late August.
With COVID-19 numbers on the rise in the U.S. and movie theaters in NY/LA unlikely to reopen in the immediate future, there's (naturally) a lot of uncertainty surrounding The New Mutants' tentative release strategy. In spite of this, the film hosted a virtual for Comic-Con@Home (an online event and replacement for this year's canceled San Diego Comic-Con) on Thursday, July 23. There, writer-director Josh Boone and his cast presented previously-unseen footage from the movie and continued to hype its - possible - belated arrival near the end of next month.
Regardless of what happens from here, The New Mutants is poised to have a big impact on movies for the remainder of 2020. If the comic book adaptation opens in August as planned, it would be the first truly notable film to hit theaters since the COVID-19 lockdown orders were put into place in March - which again, would be an amusing development, given all the delays it's endured. Basically, Boone's superhero project would become what Tenet was positioned to be for a long time (e.g. the first major post-coronavirus tentpole), prior to its removal from the schedule this past week.
Alternatively, if The New Mutants ends up being sent directly to streaming or even Disney+ on its current date (or some point shortly after), that would arguably be the most noteworthy example of a movie scrapping its theatrical run this year. Unlike Artemis Fowl, which Disney sent straight to its streaming service back in June, Boone's film has continued to receive a substantial marketing push - something that suggests the studio sees it as a movie with real potential, as opposed to a financial dud in the making a la Artemis Fowl. It would also mark yet another significant shift in favor of streaming in a year that has already seen a number of those.
Even if Disney decides to simply delay The New Mutants' theatrical release for the fifth time (presumably, moving it back to 2021), it would set a precedent for the remainder of the year and increase the odds of movie theaters remaining largely closed down until mid-2021. There is, of course, a fourth option too: the studio could drop The New Mutants on both VOD and in certain theaters on the same day in August, much like Orion Pictures intends to do with Bill & Ted Face the Music at the beginning of September. If so, that too could pave the way to other modestly-budgeted movies using the same distribution strategy over the final four months of the year. Whichever way you cut it, The New Mutants is something the entire film industry should be keeping a close eye on.
