It has been reported for a while now that a television series based upon Marvel’s X-Men characters has been in the works. Now, it is apparently progressed far enough along that an order for a pilot episode and the green light go-ahead is looming on the horizon.
The show will be written and executive produced by Matt Nix, who previously worked on shows such as Singularity and Burn Notice. He will be joined by Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Jim Chory and Jeph Loeb. The earlier version of the script were well received for 20th Century Fox execs, well enough to put out the order for a pilot. The chairman of Fox Studios, Gary Newman, told Deadline.com that he “expects the final draft to come in shortly and a pilot pickup within the next week or two.” We should potentially hear more about the DC / Warner Brothers TV show Black Lightning around the same time as both Black Lightning and this as-yet-unnamed X-Men show are major commitments for Fox this year.
This past summer, a put-pilot order went out (which is a deal for a pilot episode to be produced that also comes with financial penalties should the episode fail to air).
At the time, President of Fox Entertainment, David Madden, stated; “Developing a Marvel property has been a top priority for the network — and we are so pleased with how Matt Nix has led us into this thrilling universe,” and continued; “There’s comic book adventure, emotional and complicated relationships and a rich, existing mythology from which to draw. With the brilliant production crew behind this project, it has all the makings of a big, fun and exciting new series.”
Fox, owners of the X-Men properties from a deal that extends back to the late 1990s and Marvel’s strategic initiatives to climb out of chapter 11 bankruptcy, has been trying to bring the X-Men to home televisions screens for years. In fact, both Hellfire and Legion were unveiled around the same time to be in the works. A new 24 series took the producers off of the Hellfire project and the show was abandoned. Legion, however is going forward, with the first episode set to air on February 8th of 2017. The studio has already been working with DC Comics, producing two shows for the: Gotham and Lucifer.
Now, fans will be able to add another superhero-themed show to their roster of episodic live-action entertainment.
One question that looms, will these X-Men tv show cross over with the X-Men Silver Screen Universe? With New Mutants, 1990s X-Men, more Deadpool, potentially X-Force, at some point Gambit (maybe?) movies on the way, how will this show play in to that emerging new phase of the X-Men movies? We will just have to wait and see – but – apparently the wait won’t be that long any more.
