There have been rumours of some sort of X-Men TV series for a while now, but Marvel has today gone ahead and announced two of them.
The first is Hellfire (though that’s said to be just a working title for the time being), a show being developed by Fox which was created by Evan Katz (24: Live Another Day), Manny Coto (24), Patrick McKay and JD Payne (Star Trek 3). The latter two are writing the script, while X-Men franchise veterans Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, and Simon Kinberg are all producing. Katz and Cooc are set to serve as showrunners.
Set in the late 1960s, the series follows a young Special Agent who learns that a power-hungry woman with extraordinary abilities is working with a clandestine society of millionaires – known as “The Hellfire Club” – to take over the world.
The second of these newly announced X-Men shows is in the works at FX, and it’s titled Legion.
The pilot apparently introduces the story of David Haller. Since he was a teenager, David has struggled with mental illness. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. But after a strange encounter with a fellow patient, he’s confronted with the possibility that the voices he hears and the visions he sees might be real.
Noah Hawley (Fargo) will write the pilot and serve as an Executive Producer along with those mentioned above. What’s really interesting here though is that both Hellfire and Legion are co-productions with Marvel, and it’s hard not to wonder what Fox may have given Marvel in return for the green light to move forward on these.
Perhaps Kevin Feige now finally has his hands on Galactus and the Silver Surfer…