The long-wait for New Mutants may not have been worth it, as critics have already weighed in on the film, and so far, scores are even less positive than those given to X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Early reviews call the Josh Boone film, “The worst X-Men movie ever” (Scott Mendelson, Forbes), “A plodding viewing experience” (Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com), and “A movie best forgotten by all involved” (Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network). Currently, the review sample size is small (only 20 reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes) and many critics declined invitations to attend in-person screenings due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, however New Mutants current score on the Tomatometer is an abysmal 20% positive.
Maisie Williams (who plays Wolfsbane in New Mutants) took the news in stride and showed her good sense of humor by tweeting out the Forbes review.
Film critics weren’t the only ones who were hard on the film, as New Mutants co-creator Bob McLeod took to his facebook page to vent about the depiction of his characters on the big screen, saying that “I was disappointed when they didn’t give Dani braids, although I like Blu Hunt. I was disappointed when Rahne wasn’t a redhead with spiky hair, although I adore Maisie Williams. I was disappointed that Sam isn’t tall and gawky, although I do like Charlie Heaton. But mainly I was very disappointed that Roberto isn’t short and dark-skinned.”
The producers didn’t do McLeod any favors (or engender any good will from the artist) when they misspelled his name in the credits. Understandably, McLeod was upset and said “…apparently they’ve credited someone named Bob Macleod as co-creator. They couldn’t even be bothered to check the spelling of my name sometime in the last three years. And that can’t be fixed. That will be on the movie forever. I think I’m done with this movie.”
New Mutants long and winding road to the cineplex has been well-documented and delays of this length usually do not stall an award-winning film. New Mutants was originally scheduled to screen on January 11, 2018, then to March 27, 2018, then to May 7, 2019, then to March 12, 2020, and finally to August 27, 2020.
Come back on Sunday for a full box office report on how New Mutants fared with paying customers.