The X-Men spinoff film The New Mutants, from The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone, was originally announced in May of 2015, which you may recognize as being full-on five goddamn years ago, or roughly 1/5th of star Maisie Williams’ life. This movie has been stuck on a shelf since back when people still liked Game of Thrones, is what I’m saying.

The film, focused on a small group of teenagers experiencing their mutant powers for the first time and learning how to cope with them, was pitched as a cross between a superhero film and a horror movie, which left many of us potential fans quite intrigued. “A body horror X-Men film, you say?” we said. “I’d pay upwards of $17.50 to see that!” The New Mutants finished filming in 2017, with a targeted release date of April, 2018. But the movie’s release was pushed back to February of 2019, both to avoid competing with Deadpool 2 and to accommodate some reshoots. A few months later, The New Mutants was bumped again, this time from February 2019 to August 2019, to avoid competing with Dark Phoenix. As it turns out, Dark Phoenix needn’t have worried about a competing X-Men film, because it was an intergalactic piece of shit that bombed hard enough to disprove Halley’s Hollow Earth theory. Finally, following Disney’s very Dark Phoenix-esque assimilation of 20th Century Fox, The New Mutants was kicked off the calendar yet again and relocated to April of 2020. At long last, the universe intervened, and The New Mutants was pulled from Disney’s release schedule due to the coronavirus pandemic. Today, the company proudly announced that, for real this time, The New Mutants will hit theaters in August of this year, we’re totally serious.

At this point, you could be forgiven for believing that The New Mutants is anything more than an elaborate practical joke. The movie doesn’t actually exist, it’s merely a tax shelter for former Fox executives. But as I sat here reading the news of this latest release date, I had an accidental epiphany. Summoning all of my considerable wit, I thought to myself, “Boy, The New Mutants is the Chinese Democracy of movies,” and suddenly everything clicked. I think there’s something deeper and ultimately more exciting at work here, something reminiscent of an infamous appetite for illusions and spaghetti that provoked a group of balladeers on a quest to bring democracy to a distant land. I am of course speaking of William “Axl” Rose and his band of adventurers Guns N’ Roses. Therefore, I believe The New Mutants is secretly a new Guns N’ Roses album. There can be no other explanation.

If the blessed wish of that August 2020 release date is granted, people will file into movie theaters, maintaining social distancing with New Mutants masks covering their faces, and get settled into their seats for the new X-Men movie only to see Axl goddamn Rose muster all of the might of his 58 years to kick open the door of the X-Mansion and shriek, “It’s the New Mutants, baby! You’re gonna diiiiiiieeeeee before you get to see it!” The surprise album drop will continue much in this fashion for the next 90 minutes, with Slash standing on the cockpit of the Blackbird, struggling to demolish a bitchin’ guitar solo and keep his signature hat from flying off of his head at supersonic speeds at the same time, and Duff McKagan frantically thumping out bass lines while running top speed from Wolverine after dumping all his beer down the sink. I would purchase an infinite number of tickets to watch Axl Rose wheeze his way through “Welcome to the Jungle” in the belly of Cerebro until he blacks out and falls over the railing, and I know I’m not alone.

As you may or may not remember, Axl Rose is the absolute champion of very publicly delaying an artistic project to the point of self-parody. Initially begun when his band was on top of the world back in 1994, Chinese Democracy didn’t finally see the light of day until the end of 2008. That’s 14 damn years, or roughly two-thirds of New Mutants star Anya Taylor-Joy’s life. The only way to justify The New Mutants now-comical delays and convince everyone the movie isn’t a total shitshow is to fold Chinese Democracy II into it. Or possibly Dr. Dre’s Detox. The only other explanation is that The New Mutants is a jumbled mess that nobody knows how to market, and that suggestion is so far outside the realm of possibility that I refuse to even consider it.