Fox is already bringing characters who first appeared in X-Men comics to TV a few weeks from now when Legion arrives on FX. But the cable network’s broadcast sister network isn’t going to be shy of mutants for long. Matt Nix, of Burn Notice fame, is bringing the mutants to broadcast with an untitled show.
The show itself sounds fairly straightforward. According to Fox:
The UNTITLED MARVEL ACTION-ADVENTURE SERIES will focus on two ordinary parents who discover their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins up with an underground network of mutants and must fight to survive.
That sounds like an X-Men origin story if there ever was one. Further cementing the connection: Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, and Simon Kinberg, all part of Fox’s X-Men team in the past, are pitching in as executive producers. Don’t expect, however, to see Cyclops and Storm pop up during sweeps. Despite the arrival of Legion, Fox and Marvel, according to a Variety profile of Legion‘s showrunner Noah Hawley, prefer to focus on the B-listers only hardcore fans will know as part of a friendly, but distant, corporate peace.
[But] with former “Heroes” executive producer Loeb leading Marvel Television, and Peter Rice, who developed the first “X-Men” movie back when he was a film executive, heading Fox Networks Group, the two companies have struck a more collaborative tone on series projects.
“Frankly, they’ve been pretty bold,” Landgraf says in praise of Marvel’s TV efforts. And he notes that Marvel executives have been outspoken on “Legion” when they’ve had concerns about how the character was being handled. But not too outspoken.
The presence of Nix, though, is attention-getting, and lesser known heroes have been doing surprisingly well on television. The CW not only just gave their time-traveling team of superheroes Legends Of Tomorrow a plum spot after The Flash, starting tonight, the network extended the show’s episode order. And even DC’s biggest fans might be hard pressed to name an issue a guy like Citizen Steel showed up in. Besides, if Fox can spin a show like Gotham into an ongoing hit, we can’t wait to see what they can do with Marvel.
