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After helming YA adaptation ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, Josh Boone is re-teaming with that film’s writing team, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber on his upcoming ‘X-Men’ spinoff film ‘New Mutants’.  We already knew that 20th Century Fox wanted this film to have a YA tone and it certainly seems like it’s headed in that direction.  Boone and writing partner Knate Gwaltney had previously already submitted one script for this film, but it’s unclear at this point whether Neustadter and Weber will simply be tweaking that treatment or starting from scratch.

Photo credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com
Photo credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com

It is known that following the underperformance of ‘X-Men: Age of Apocalypse’, Fox is looking to re-calibrate their ‘X-Men’ franchise, which now appears to be headed up by ‘Deadpool’.  With ‘Gambit’ in seemingly eternal turmoil, things aren’t looking great or the mutant brand, so it makes sense that Sony wants to be extra cautious moving forward.

Neustadter and Weber also co-wrote two other YA hits ‘The Spectacular Now’ and ‘Paper Towns’ as well as ‘(500) Days Of Summer’ and the upcoming James Franco flick ‘The Masterpiece’.  They also co-created the shortlived TV series ‘Friends With Benefits’.

It should be interesting to see how creators that have never really explored the world of super heroics will approach the subject matter.

The film version of ‘New Mutants’ will focus on the characters Mirage/Danielle Moonstar who has psychic abilities, Cannonball a backwoods mutant from Kentucky who can fly and has forcefield-like powers, Wolfsbane a young Scottish girl who turns into a wolf, Sunspot a “Brazilian ladies man’ with super strength, Magik a magical Russian girl (and sister of the X-Men’s Colossus) and extraterrestrial shape shifter Warlock.  Storm is expected to appear in a mentor role.

What do you think of this approach to ‘New Mutants’?  Are you worried that this will be too schmaltzy and not action-packed enough?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter