Has Tom Rothman Confirmed NEW MUTANTS?

Fox has the rights to all of Marvel's mutant characters, which is a real trove of modestly interesting super powered people. A relative handful of Marvel's mutants have so far made it to movie screens, with old standby Wolverine being the guy who has shown up the most. But could that change? Today was Fox's day at CinemaCon, and Collider got the following sort of confusing quote from big Fox daddy Tom Rothman:

Steve: I know you guys have New Mutants and a lot of characters in the X-Men universe.  Obviously you guys are moving forward on an X-Men sequel, you’re moving forward on Wolverine, do you envision New Mutants or some of these other characters as franchises that the door can be open to?  It does seem to me that the superhero genre is bigger than it’s ever been, and you guys have some of the crown jewels.

 

Rothman: (smiles) Yes.

When can fans expect an announcement on some of these other properties?  Before Comic-Con, after Comic-Con, at Comic-Con?

 

Rothman:  In the summer.

Are you talking to filmmakers right now?

Rothman: Let me just say this.  All I have to say is, I agree with you in your assessment of the potential in a lot of these characters.
 

So in text it's really obvious that Steve means The New Mutants, who were created as sort of the X-Men farm team in the 80s. See, the original X-Men were students at the Xavier School, but when the team relaunched with Giant Size X-Men #1 a lot of that went out the window. The New Mutants were the new students at the school, a younger lot - and they actually had some great stories and some fine characters.

But in real life it's less obvious. When I say to you 'You guys have New Mutants,' you can't be sure I'm putting caps on those words. You may think I'm asking about generic new mutants, of which there are plenty. Some of which are even chronologically new!

Of course, New Mutants does make a ton of sense as a new property (although X-Men: First Class feels a lot like it already). I'd love to see a line-up featuring the likes of Cannonball, Sunspot, Illyana Rasputin, Cypher and Warlock. But let's not jump the gun and assume New Mutants is happening.