Maisie Williams shares a not-so-great update for New Mutants fans

The highly anticipated New Mutants film, a horror genre X-Men story, has slipped into limbo. Maisie Williams has a few words to say on the delays.

The X-Men have had their fair share of screen time, even before the Marvel Cinematic Universe made superhero movies mainstream. The newest addition to the X-Men collection, a horror-style spin-off titled New Mutants, has been widely anticipated ever since it first starting filming back in 2017. But in the two years since then, the Josh Boone directed project has become more and more elusive.

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Maisie Williams (the Game of Thrones star who’s playing Wolfsbane in the new film) proved that it’s not just fans who are frustrated with the delays. “Who know’s when the f–k that’s supposed to come out,” Williams said, referring to New Mutants.

Williams went on to explain that the expected reshoots, meant to make the film scarier, haven’t happened yet, if they’re happening at all. And she’s not the only one in the dark.

In her interview, Williams said when she ran into co-star Charlie Heaton, who will play Cannonball, she asked candidly what the heck was going on. Apparently, Heaton didn’t know anything either. Originally expected spring of last year, the film is currently slated for an August 2 release, though it’s looking like that might not actually happen either.

“Hopefully this interview will make everyone hurry up a little bit!” Williams added.

The New Mutants will follow five young mutants — Wolfsbane (Williams), Cannonball (Heaton), Magik (Anya Taylor-Joy), Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) and Sunspot (Henry Zaga) who are confined to a secret facility. According to director Josh Boone, it will be a “full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe. There are no costumes. There are no supervillains. We’re trying to do something very, very different.”

With the overwhelming number of superhero movies right now, something “very, very different” could be the perfect win for the X-Men franchise. So why the delays?

A huge contributing factor is the Disney/21st Century Fox merger, which put the rights of all X-Men projects (including the New Mutants)into the hands of Disney. While Disney could go ahead and just release the film as intended in August, rumor has it that Disney is contemplating bypassing a theatrical release of the film, instead sending it straight to streaming via it’s own Disney+ streaming service.

So for now, the film is still in limbo. But with it’s new horror approach to superheroes and star-studded cast, this is one superhero project we don’t want to see disappear.