There’s a considerable amount of buzz starting to build around the X-Men franchise at the moment. Though Fox has yet to announce what they’ll be doing with the next entry in the main series – rumors point to it being X-Men: Supernova – there’s still much to be excited about. Deadpool 2 and New Mutants are currently gearing up for production, but it’s what’s happening on the small screen that’s perhaps the most intriguing.
Earlier today, Fox gave Matt Nix’s family drama a pilot order, which is certainly big news for fans of the iconic franchise. But before that gets underway, we have Legion to look forward to. Premiering next month on FX, early reviews for the Noah Hawley-created show are tremendously positive, with critics saying it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. That’s not hard to believe, given what we know about it, but one thing that people are still wondering about is how it’ll connect to the X-Men movies.
Producer Lauren Shuler Donner has mentioned in the past that it would be set in its own world, but now, in a new interview with Variety, Hawley clarified things a bit further. Here’s what he had to say:
“I think it’s important for us to establish this as a fully realized world with fully realized characters. It does connect and it can connect, but I’m not relying on that. I have to prove myself. I have to prove that the show is good enough to incorporate those elements from the movie world, if that were ever possible.”
“It’s sort of a non-starter to say James McAvoy’s going to be in my show. I’m not saying never, but certainly not in the first year of it. You’d have to pay those guys so much money to begin with. You’d have to pay them movie money in a different medium.”
So, there you have it, straight from the creator’s mouth. We’ve no doubt that Legion will be a big hit for FX, but it makes sense that it needs to prove itself first and establish its own world before it even begins to consider crossovers. Once it’s done that though, we wouldn’t be too surprised if some of the smaller mutants from the movies universe show up here.
That doesn’t mean you should expect to see McAvoy, Fassbender or any of the other leads appear on Legion, but some kind of crossover is almost inevitable at this point – and honestly, as long as it’s handled properly, we’d be all for seeing it happen.
