Rumors of a live-action X-Men TV universe have been swirling for ages, and fans finally got confirmation of its existence with Legion. News broke earlier this year that Marvel and FOX were teaming up with Noah Hawley (Fargo) to bring Legion to life. And, just last month, the two studios revealed they were teaming up for yet another project with Matt Nix (Burn Notice). Unsurprisingly, Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb is stoked about the series.
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Speaking with IGN at this year’s TV Critics’ Association press tour, Loeb said, “As an X-Men fan, and ultimately, what Matt — the showrunner and creator — brings to it is that the X-Men are always stories about family. That’s where they start, that’s where they live. It’s about understanding how we deal with each other.”
“It’s about parents that don’t understand what’s wrong with their kids, it’s about kids that don’t understand their parents. And he understood that. He got it,” he went on to explain.
The untitled series is reportedly replacing the studios’ pursuit of Hellfire considering most of its writers jumped ship for 24. And, so far, it looks like the show will definitely air on FOX at some point. The studio was given a ‘put pilot’ commitment, meaning that FOX will have to pay a hefty penalty should they not green-light the project.
Obviously, Loeb was cagey about revealing much information on the upcoming X-Men series. “We haven’t really been able to tell everybody what the whole story is,” he said. “They’ll be able to see it, and when they do, it’ll be really clear why those characters were chosen, where they are going, and what’s going to happen.”
While a release date hasn’t been set for the show, FOX expects the series to debut sometime in the 2017-2018 TV season. FOX Television’s CEO Dana Walden told /Film a bit about the show’s direction by saying, “It’s about an average family who encounters this extraordinary world and children who have mutant powers and they end up on the run, so it’s a little bit underground railroad in terms of a storytelling spine.”
