Despite having to move the entire event online due to unprecedented conditions, this year’s Comic-Con still managed to draw a significant about of eyeballs for its first day of virtual events and panels. But one of those virtual panels stood head and shoulders above the rest: The New Mutants.
As of this writing, The New Mutants panel has racked up over 110,000 YouTube views, which easily puts the long-delayed mutant movie far ahead of its competition for Thursday. Here were the heavy hitters for the day, and as you can see, not one of them reaches half of The New Mutants‘ numbers. Although, in fairness, the Star Trek panel did experience technical difficulties when Viacom forgot to whitelist Comic-Con’s YouTube channel causing the virtual panel to be temporarily pulled for copyright infringement. Whoops.
Top Comic-Con@Home Panels For Day 1
The New Mutants – 110,000+ views
Star Trek – 42,000+ views
The Boys – 32,000+ views
His Dark Materials – 22,000+ views
Marvel’s 616 – 20,000+ views
The appetite for The New Mutants is particularly impressive given the film’s numerous delays. The mutant horror movie bore the brunt of Disney’s massive acquisition of Fox, and for a long while, it looked like The New Mutants had vanished into the ether. But then director Josh Boone surprised X-Men fans by revealing that Disney had given him the opportunity to finish the movie, which only needed some editing and visual effects work. (Boone is adamant that the film didn’t require reshoots despite rumors.) Everything was moving along nicely for an April 2020 release date with Boone and the cast doing press in the weeks leading up to its release.
And then the pandemic happened.
The New Mutants found itself punted to an August release date, which is looking increasingly unlikely by the day and has sparked a renewed call for a streaming release. But while that approach is mired in uncertainty, one thing’s for sure, X-Men fans are here for The New Mutants, and they’re in it for the long haul.