When I ran a recent report about some exciting cast attachments for Josh Boone”s upcoming The New Mutants, I also reported on which mutants you could expect to see in the film. Now it appears that Boone, who recently turned in his latest draft of the proposed new addition to the bigscreen X-Men universe, is dropping some big hints today on Instagram that confirm the characters I previously mentioned.
What”s even more exciting are the additional characters he”s suggesting may show up in the movie. For me, the idea that Warlock is going to be built into the franchise from the beginning is terrific news. I wasn”t sure until now that he was part of the line-up, and I think it”s fair to say that is the best news I”ve heard about the film so far. As originally introduced in New Mutants #18, he was one of my favorite overall Marvel characters. He”s a shape-shifting alien made entirely of technological matter. As rendered by Bill Sienkiewicz, I found him visually to be one of the coolest designs in any of the comics I was collecting at that point. I hope they let him look like that original Sienkiewicz design for at least one movie, because he would be a tremendous challenge for a CGI team, and utterly unlike any other superhero character. The closest equivalent I can think of would be Groot in Guardians Of The Galaxy, but they”re capable of such different things, especially if Boone”s taking story material from the comics.
That early run of New Mutants comics is one of my favorite times as a reader. I was 13 when they started publishing the title, and my buddy Bill Rosemann was the one who clued me in right at the start. He was a voracious collector, while I tended to focus on only a few titles at any given time. He was a huge Chris Claremont fan, and he loaned me the Marvel graphic novel that was published as a sort of introduction to The New Mutants. I think it appealed to me that it played with the basic premise of X-Men, but with a clean start to the continuity. I liked the connections to the larger Marvel world that were suggested, but I also liked the focus on a brand-new team.
This fun image of Warlock seems to have some fans upset, and people are asking for a wide variety of the different incarnations of the character. There”s no way to please everyone, but I”m going to take it as a sign that he used the image he did.
This group shot features Dani, Magik, Sunspot, Cannonball, and Rahne, who is one of those characters who perfectly captures the angst inherent to this particular X-team.
He”s got a solo shot of Roberto De Costa, hashtagged with his real name and as Sunspot.
Same thing with Sam Guthrie, aka Cannonball.
I like how much of the Sienkiewicz art Boone”s leaning on, and I”m curious if he”s going to try to build up to the Demon Bear storyline with Dani in either this film or a potential sequel.
A solo page for Wolfsbane/Rahne Sinclair.
And finally, there”s Ilyana Rasputin, aka Magik, and Boone drops two very pointed references in the hashtag. He points out Lockheed”s tail, implying he”s actually going to bring Ilyana”s pet dragon to life in the film, and he also hashtags Bill Sienkiewicz specifically. Man, that makes me happy. Boone seems to be focused on the exact version of the team that I am fondest of, and while I know that won”t be true for everyone, I”m having a hard time not being delighted by everything we”ve heard from Boone so far.
Boone, who directed The Fault In Our Stars, is working with Knate Gwaltney on the script for the film, which will feature James McAvoy, Alexandra Shipp, also introducing Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane and Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik. We”re in for some good stuff with this one, and I”m hoping these hints from Boone mean we”re close to official announcements for the entire young cast.
In the meantime, X-Men: Apocalypse is in theaters May 27, 2016, but you can read our review here this coming Monday at 2 PM PDT.