Scrapped ‘New Mutants’ Sequel Would’ve Had Antonio Banderas Playing the Villain

The New Mutants is finally about to hit theaters (unless the coronavirus changes that), and a long time ago, it was supposed to be the first in a proposed trilogy. That all changed when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and turned it into 20th Century Studios. Now, New Mutants is likely to be a standalone film – but had the trilogy plan remained intact, a post-credit scene was going to be included featuring Antonio Banderas as villain Emmanuel da Costa.

Who is Emmanuel da Costa? In the comics, he’s the father of the New Mutant character Sunspot, and a ruthless businessman who joined the Hellfire Club. In the upcoming The New Mutants movie, Sunspot appears as a character played by Henry Zaga. And according to director Josh Boone, the original plan was to set up Sunspot’s evil father for the sequel.

“We had always planned to have a tag at the end of the movie that introduced the villain for the next movie,” Boone told EW. “We even had an actor cast, but because of the merger and because Marvel owns X-Men now and is going to do their own thing, there was no reason to go shoot it.” That actor Boone mentions being cast was none other than Antonio Banderas.

But unfortunately, none of this came to pass. When the Fox-Disney merger happened, any hopes for Boone’s proposed New Mutants trilogy went out the window. Boone also revealed that characters Karma and Warlock were going to be in the sequel:

“Karma was always going to be the villain in the second movie that would be absorbed into the group by the end. We had always wanted to bring Karma and Warlock into the second one when we couldn’t do it in the first one. For us, we wanted that initial core team [for the first movie]. We just couldn’t swap out Illyana. We felt like there was no reason to do [the movie] if we couldn’t bring that character to life in the first one.”

If all of this sounds pretty cool to you…sorry. It’s not going to happen. But hey, at least the first New Mutants film is finally going to see the light of day! That’s something! The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, Henry Zaga as Sunspot, Blu Hunt as Dani Moonstar, and Charlie Heaton as Cannonball. Look for it in theaters April 3, 2020. Unless that changes.

Cool Posts From Around the Web: Written by: Slash