Bryan Singer Teases Familiar Faces In New X-Men TV Series

Last week, Fox gave officially ordered the pilot for a new X-Men television series. Just one day later, Fox announced that X-Men Movies director Bryan Singer would direct the pilot. Now Singer, who has directed five X-Men movies, is opening up about the new series pilot and the state of the X-Men movies universe.

“I’ll tell you, it’s very different from [Legion], visually, and yet it’s very different from the X-Men films as well,” Singer tells Mashable. Legion will be the first X-Men TV series and debuts on FX next week. “It’s mostly about a family. It’s a family drama. There’ll be effects, powers, and things like that. But at its heart, it’s about a family. It’s an emotional story.”

One thing that the new X-Men series and Legion do have in common is their relationship to the continuity of the X-Men movies, or lack there.

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“It’s another standalone,” Singer says. “That’s our design. We developed it together — not together, but like at the same time. The only reason I was able to direct it was because the movie I want to make next, I’m not going to be able to make until September, so it gave me four months, and I suddenly said, ‘Why don’t I take the helm?’”

Singer says the cast will have “some familiar and some unfamiliar” faces, and that there’s crossover in the future of the X-Men movies franchise.

“Some crossover is all I can really say,” Singer teased. “I can’t really speak to that. I come in and out of it, sort of, but I’ve been involved in it for about 20 years — I signed the deal in ’96! I think there’ll just be crossover and standalone. It’s just the right thing to do. The X-Men universe is every bit as big as the rest of the whole Marvel universe, so why not?”

Legion premiers on FX on Feb. 8.