For a while there, it looked as though The New Mutants would never see the light of day, with the movie spending so long trapped in purgatory that it went from being the last X-Men film released by Fox to becoming the first to be distributed by Disney. All along the way, there were rumors that the spinoff might end up bypassing theaters entirely and head straight to digital, but director Josh Boone insisted that legal and contractual obligations made it an impossibility.
The New Mutants fared about as well as you would expect from a troubled production released in the middle of a global pandemic that has ravaged the theatrical industry, and suffered from tepid reviews, many of which labeled it as the worst X-Men effort yet. After extensive reshoots and countless delays saw it sitting on the shelf for years, the horror-tinged prequel wound up earning just over $42 million at the box office, and still has a long way to go before turning a profit can even be considered a realistic or achievable goal.
Now, the coffers are set to swell following the news that it will be available on Blu-Ray and digital next month. The poor critical reception could dissuade a lot of people from shelling out for the privilege, though, especially when it might very well end up on Disney Plus in the not too distant future.
Still, completionists will no doubt look to add The New Mutants to their X-Men collection once the thirteenth and final installment arrives on November 17th, and it seems the marketing team are already pulling out all the stops by dubbing the initial home video release as The Ultimate Collector’s Edition. Will that be enough to convince folks to pick it up, though? We’ll have to wait and see.