Josh Boone told us The New Mutants was going to be a "full-fledged horror", but...we didn't think he was THAT serious!? The first trailer hit last week and it might've been inspired by Nightmare on Elm Street it digs so deep into the genre. The X-Men franchise has been around since 2000, a full eight years before Marvel's Iron Man, and it's exciting to see Fox taking superhero movies in such a radical direction. And it's only the beginning.
Speaking with IGN, Boone revealed The New Mutants will be the first of a horror trilogy. Boone mentioned something he's talked about before, that he was inspired by the dark stories of Chris Claremont and gloomy, sketchy art by Bill Sienkiewicz.
"We brought it to FOX as a trilogy of films, really all based on that long run by Sienkiewicz, and kind of incorporates some stuff from later issues in the '80s.
These are all going to be horror movies, and they're all be their own distinct kind of horror movies. This is certainly the ‘rubber-reality’ supernatural horror movie. The next one will be a completely different kind of horror movie.
Our take was just go examine the horror genre through comic book movies and make each one its own distinct sort of horror film. Drawing from the big events that we love in the comics."
Those stories by Claremont and Sienkiewicz introduced the supernatural Demon Bear into the X-Men mythos, and rumors are it will have a part in the film.
As the horror genre continues to surge in popularity (the virtually unknown Happy Death Day killed it last weekend), Boone's approach is pretty clever. I'm curious about what he wants to do next; perhaps bring in the vampiric Selene for the sequel? Hopefully The New Mutants is a hit when it opens next April so we can see Boone's trilogy play out.
