“X-Men: New Mutants” shifts focus to 'full-fledged horror'

After confirming that Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy would be joining Josh Boone's X-Men universe spin-off “The New Mutants” earlier this month, Collider reports to have new information that gets a little more detailed than previous knowledge about it drawing inspiration from Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod's early 80s creation about a team of young Marvel mutants.

Entertainment Weekly spoke to writer-director Josh Boone himself, and the most interesting of that conversation is the tone of this project, which is apparently shifting from its earlier iteration as a Young Adult-styled film to more of a horror focus.

Based on the current cast, they really could have gone either way with it: 20-year-old Williams will play Wolfsbane alongside 21-year-old Taylor-Joy as Magik. Henry Zaga (from “13 Reasons Why”) is rumored for the role of Sunspot, with Rosario Dawson in negotiations to play Dr. Cecilia Reyes, “a medical doctor who has the ability to generate a protective bio-field around herself,” and will act as a mentor of sorts, as The Hollywood Reporter reports. It's still unclear whether or not James McAvoy's Professor X or Alexandra Shipp's Storm will appear, as there have been conflicting reports.

“We are making a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe. There are no costumes. There are no super-villains. We're trying to do something very, very different,”Boone was quoted as saying. 

That would certainly be a new approach, considering that Disney/Marvel, Sony/Marvel, 20th Century Fox/Marvel, and Warner Bros./DC have done pretty well with costumes and super-villains over the last 20 years or so.

The movie's plot will reportedly take inspiration from artist Bill Sienkiewicz's 1984 run on the Marvel comics series, which Boone described as, “a darker and more surreal and impressionistic X-Men series than we'd ever seen before. It felt like Stephen King meets John Hughes.”

The story is expected to explore how mutants are at their most dangerous – to themselves and people around them – when their powers are new.

The film is set to go on floors in July with a targeted April 13, 2018 release.