Josh Boone Compares Working on Fault in Our Stars to New Mutants

Josh Boone has spoken out about the differences between working on The Fault in Our Stars and New Mutants. The Fault in Our Stars was about two teenagers who fell in love at a cancer support group, while New Mutants is the final film in Fox’s long-running X-Men film series. Boone was the director for both films, with The Fault in Our Stars premiering in 2014 and New Mutants releasing late last month.

That being said, New Mutants has had an uphill battle to a theatrical release from the beginning. Disney’s acquisition of Fox meant that the movie went through a seemingly endless series of rescheduling and reshuffling; the original New Mutants script is nearly unrecognizable from the finished product. To add to the film’s challenges, it debuted to negative reviews across the board, where it received a critic score of 32 on Rotten Tomatoes. In particular, reviewers criticized the film’s constant delays, as well as the inconsistent tone.

BBC caught up with New Mutants director Josh Boone, who compared this project to his time on The Fault in Our Stars. When discussing the differences between making The Fault in Our Stars with New Mutants, Boone noted, “That was blessed circumstances and this was like, the opposite.” He cites New Mutants’ burgeoning production and post-production process as two of the main issues he had with the film, especially after reshoots that were scheduled to happen fell through due to the Disney/Fox merger. Boone expresses disappointment at the circumstances surrounding the film’s development, saying they were “perplexing” at best and that “there were a lot of bumps and bruises” along the way.

Boone also mentions the film’s budget was one major hindrance of New Mutants. Although he originally envisioned a world that was far more interconnected with that of the X-Men, budget constraints meant he had to “cut [his] dream of [the film] in half.” All in all, Boone seems to have taken the experience in stride, although he does state that he’ll “choose [his] next project more wisely.” While Boone appears to have taken New Mutants as a learning process, it’s still frustrating to know that a director who produced the award-winning The Fault in Our Stars faced so many difficulties in implementing his intended vision of the film.

Although New Mutants didn’t receive a particularly warm box office welcome, its focus on more unknown mutant characters is still quite the treat for die-hard Marvel fans. The film may not have met expectations as Marvel enthusiasts wanted, but the introduction of characters such as Magik, Cannonball, and Sunspot is still a fun sight to take in. While the released theatrical version may have fallen short, the original script details show the untapped potential of this film. Most fans would agree that Boone’s The Fault in Our Stars turned out far better than New Mutants, and given the problems behind the scenes of the latest X-Men film, Boone can’t really be at fault for New Mutants failure.