Back in May, director Josh Boone announced that The New Mutants begins shooting in July, although he didn't offer an exact date for the production start. As it turns out, that date is today, July 10, with the filmmaker taking to social media to reveal that production has kicked off. He also shared the first photo from set, a humorous gag gift, given to him by his director of photography on the film, Peter Deming. Here's what Josh Boone had to say about this slate on his Instagram post from yesterday.

"Gag gift from @peter_deming We start shooting tomorrow! Wish us luck! #newmutants #xmen"

The "gag gift" in question, which you can see below from Josh Boone's Instagram, is a new film slate, except, instead of showcasing The New Mutants logo, it featured an altered logo from the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, with an X placed within the O, and a photo of the full Growing Pains cast, including a young Leonardo DiCaprio. The slate is obviously a joke referring to this group of young mutants at the heart of this story, including Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Henry Zaga as Sunspot, Charlie Heaton as Cannonball and Blu Hunt as Mirage. With all of these young mutants discovering their powers, their "growing pains" will certainly be more considerable than your average teenager. That also happens to be the secret working title of the movie (though its obviously not a secret anymore).

The cast also includes Alice Braga, who recently came aboard to replace Rosario Dawson as Dr. Celia Reyes, who serves as a mentor to these New Mutants. She herself is also a mutant, who has the ability to create a protective bio-field around herself. It was also recently confirmed that James McAvoy will not be back as Professor Charles Xavier, likely since he will be busy working on X-Men: Dark Phoenix. There have also been reports that the primary villain is Demon Bear, with the Marvel character Warlock also expected to be part of this story, although it isn't known who will portray either character quite yet. Now that production has started, perhaps 20th Century Fox will release a full cast list soon.

Back in April, 20th Century Fox set The New Mutants release date for April 13, 2018, making it the first of three X-Men movies to hit theaters next year. The second will be Deadpool 2, arriving on June 1, 2018, with X-Men: Dark Phoenix arriving on November 2, 2018. Deadpool 2 has already started filming, with David Leitch (John Wick) at the helm, with X-Men: Dark Phoenix expected to start filming at some point later this year, under the direction of Simon Kinberg, who makes his directorial debut.

We have also recently gotten confirmation that Evan Peters will reprise his Quicksilver role in X-men 7, which will also introduce the Marvel Comics character Dazzler, although it hasn't been confirmed who is playing that character yet. Josh Boone, who co-wrote the New Mutant script with Knate Lee, teased earlier this year that The New Mutants will be a "full-fledged horror movie," set within the X-Men universe, which won't have any costumes or supervillains and will be "very, very different" from the X-Men movies we've seen before. Take a look at the gag gift given to The New Mutants director Josh Boone, as we get ready for production to begin.