You sort of have to feel bad for The New Mutants. It was a movie that couldn't catch a single break. It had a promising start out of the gate, as a movie taking place within Fox's X-Men universe that had a distinct horror bent to it, making it a unique project. However, the early buzz on the film was not strong, which led to significant reshoots, which led to an endless string of release delays, the final of which weren't even the movie's fault. Before it finally released in theaters to little fanfare at a time when many couldn't go to a theater to see it even if they wanted to. But now more people can see it, and it turns out they are.
Digital services Vudu and Fandango have both revealed that The New Mutants is the number one title on both services for the last week. Considering the movie only made a little over $20 million at the domestic box office, it's good news that, more than likely, a lot more people are already giving the film a look at home. It's likely due to the fact that the film in now available for digital rental, so it only costs about five bucks to find out whether or not The New Mutants is actually as terrible as so many have said. The movie crashed with critics and didn't do a great deal better with audiences when it came out in theaters.
Of course, by "theaters" I largely mean "the drive-in" because that was about the only part of theatrical exhibition that was still open for business in August when the movie came out. If you really wanted to see The New Mutants then you had an option to do so. Of course, if people had really wanted to see The New Mutants it likely would have been released before the summer of 2020. The film saw numerous delays. Some of them, like the acquisition of Fox by Disney and the pandemic, were things the movie clearly had zero control over, but others were studio decisions, which made it seem like the studio was not expecting great things from the movie.
There was even talk that the movie might get moved to streaming, either Disney+ or Hulu, and that was before that became an option for every other movie on the planet. While the movie wasn't made available for easy home viewing before, it is now, and since we have a lot fewer movies to watch period, the fact is that perhaps people just need to see something new. Even if the movie isn't great, there's a certain value in it just being new. And more than likely The New Mutants will find new fans who love it.
