New Mutants Made Available for Pre-Order on Amazon Video, But Quickly Taken Down
Earlier this week, to the surprise of many, the much delayed and somewhat anticipated New Mutants film was available for pre-order on Amazon video. There was no specified date of when that video would be available, but customers had the ability to pre-order the film.
It listed the title at a price point of $25.99. It did not state if this was for a rental or to buy the movie outright.
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However, the listing would be short-lived. Amazon took down the listing, with this message regarding the New Mutants title:
“Our agreements with the content provider don’t allow purchases of this title at this time.”
Questions then started circulating about why would the title be offered for pre-order in the first place. I reached out to Amazon this afternoon. I had questions about what they had planned to do for customers who pre-ordered the title this morning. Amazon has not responded at the time of this writing.
While I didn’t receive a response, at least one person did.
The message from Amazon reads, “We’re writing because we’ve canceled your pre-order of The New Mutants. This content is not yet available to customers through Prime Video. You have not been charged for this pre-order.”
It continues, “We are unable to provide an estimated release date at this time. We will continue pursuing The New Mutants and you will be able to pre-order again once it is available.”
It concludes, “We’re very sorry about the inconvenience this has caused.”
The plot thickens @NewMutantsUp pic.twitter.com/FhEryqToNw
— Mikel (@M1kel625) May 6, 2020
Anticipation and Delay
Production for the film began in 2017 and was on track for a release in April 2018. However, it would be pushed back to February 22, 2019. Fox would then juggle a number of their films including X-Men: Dark Phoenix and New Mutants again. It would then be moved to a August 2, 2019.
Then the Fox and Disney merger would happen. Director Josh Boone told Entertainment Weekly he wouldn’t hear anything from Disney for a year. He explained, “We had heard nothing because of the merger.”
He added, “It was radio silence for about a year where we had no new information at all.”
Related: Fox Changes Release Dates for X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants
Boone will also dispute rumors that indicated the film went through reshoots when it was at Fox. He explained, “Everybody said we did reshoots! We’ve never done reshoots.” But he did indicate if the Disney and Fox merger did not go through there would have been pickups, “And I’ll tell you this: if there hadn’t been a merger, I’m sure we would’ve done reshoots the same way every movie does pickups.”
He added, “We didn’t even do that because by the time the merger was done and everything was settled, everybody’s older.”
Following the merger, Disney would eventually set a release date for the film of April 3, 2020. However, due to the current pandemic and movie theaters shutting down the film was again delayed with no release date announced.
Disney Finishes The Film
Not only would Disney set a release date for the film following a year of radio silence, but they also brought in Boone and the cast to do reshoots.
Boone detailed that he received a call from Disney as he was working on his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Strand for CBS All Access. He states, “When they called me right before I went to go make The Stand and said, ‘Would you come finish the movie?’ I said, ‘I would f—in’ love to come finish the movie!’”
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Entertainment Weekly details that the film was unfinished. It would explain the numerous delays. Boone also relayed, “In the editing, we were probably 75 percent done.”
He continued, “We came back and finished it up. It took a couple months, and it was nice to be able to come back. Knate [Lee], my co-writer, and I, we hadn’t seen it in a year. We did a bunch of things here and there that we hadn’t thought about or noticed a year before.”
Game of Thrones alum Maisie Williams, who plays Wolfsbane in the film, elaborated, “The movie is exactly the movie we set out to make. I was nervous when they were talking about reshooting or re-editing that it was gonna be very different, but honestly, it’s exactly what we set out to do.”
She would go on to describe the film as a thriller after finally seeing it on the big screen, “It’s very… thriller.”
Williams elaborated, “I think the nature of a bunch of teenagers being trapped at a facility, all with individual powers which they don’t know how to use yet or even summon, that lends itself really well to suspense and scary cuts.”
Related: Wolfsbane: Who is The New Mutants Character?
She added, “It’s all done in a very honest way and it really does come from the characters and the situations that they’re in. It’s not a happy, upbeat superhero comedy film. It’s definitely very dark.”
It’s unclear when general audiences will eventually get to see New Mutants. This Amazon video listing is the closest thing we’ve gotten. However, it’s possible it could have been an old upload based on the film’s original theatrical release date and was just preparing customers to pre-order the Blu-ray and DVDs.
Hopefully in the coming weeks, we might finally get some word on when this film will actually be released.
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