It’s been a troubling time for X-Men fans.
Not only is the franchise’s immediate future up for question thanks to the impending Disney-Fox merger, but there’s also the very real concern that Dark Phoenix, Simon Kinberg’s ’90s-set prequel movie, may have fallen on hard times. The allegations even go so far as to suggest that Fox was unhappy with the third act, and quickly ordered reshoots in order to course-correct a film that was once described as the most ambitious mainline X-Men movie yet.
It’s been the same story for The New Mutants, with Josh Boone’s horror-tinged spinoff having been hit with a sizeable delay that saw it pushed back to August 2nd, 2019 – 16 months later than first scheduled. Not to mention there’ve been similar and no less troubling reports about Fox having issues behind the scenes, with the studio ordering heavy reshoots and Boone said to be unhappy with all the meddling.
Now, in news that perhaps isn’t too surprising, we’re hearing that both projects may just be scrapped entirely. Especially since Fox and Disney are going to be merging very soon. Given that this intel comes to us from a user on the Superhero Hype Forums, we’d advise taking it with a grain of salt, but he is a trusted individual and the forum does have moderators who vet the information. Not to mention that a number of other outlets have picked up this story, too.
Anyways, from what we understand, Disney’s been getting more involved in Fox’s films ever since the merger came together and they aren’t pleased with Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants, with insiders saying that the latter is as bad as 2015’s Fantastic Four reboot and the former is also a bit of a disaster. As such, both parties feel, at the moment, that it may just be better to cut their losses and cancel both movies, instead of spending millions to save them during reshoots and post-production.
That’d probably make sense and honestly, it’s easy to see why the studios are leaning towards doing it, but for now, all this remains as strictly a rumor. Neither Fox nor Disney have made any official announcement in regards to any kind of cancellation and as things stand, both X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants still remain on the release schedule. Should that change, though, we’ll be sure to let you know.