With theaters reopening across the country, movies that have been sitting in limbo due to COVID-19 will finally be seen by their waiting audiences, but most haven’t been waiting as long as the fans of the Fox X-Men franchise.

Originally scheduled to be released in April. 2018, The New Mutants has been constantly delayed due to conflicting release dates with other X-Men films, the purchasing of Fox by Disney, and the COVID-19 epidemic.

After being announced for its spring release more than two years ago, the studio announced in Jan. 2018 that major reshoots would be required before the film could be released, pushing the release back over a year to Feb. 2019. This, however, wouldn’t come to pass, and The New Mutants was rescheduled to release in Aug. 2019 in order to not interfere with X-Men: Dark Phoenix’s February release date.

The film would meet the same fate once again when it was announced that X-Men: Dark Phoenix would be rescheduled for June. 2019, and The New Mutants was delayed yet again for April, 2020. 

In another stroke of bad luck for the film, the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States delayed the dates of almost every movie priorly scheduled for release, including The New Mutants.

By the time the pandemic hit, Disney had bought Fox, giving them rights to all Fox properties, and the fate of the film hung in the balance. 

Fans were left in the dark for several months until Disney announced in Aug. 2020 that the film would finally be getting its theatrical release on Aug. 28th, 2020, over 2 years after the original date.Whether the film will be a success or be the last dying breath of Fox’s X-Men franchise, fans of movies everywhere can appreciate The New Mutants finally getting the release they’ve been promised for so long.