X-Men TV Series Set In Movie Universe

Yesterday saw word that the X-Men TV series is close to getting greenlit for Fox TV.

The X-Men TV series, said to be an action-adventure drama, focuses 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. 

The creator on the X-Men TV series, Matt Nix, described as a diehard X-Men fan, offers an update at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour (via THR): 

• The X-Men TV series won’t connect to FX’s Legion: “There’s no chance I’m stepping on anything they’re doing.’ It’s a great show, but it’s more cable-licious. It’s a very different world,” Nix said.

• The X-Men TV series will connect to the movies (although it doesn’t sound as if directly; more like a “soft” connection, perhaps similar to Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD that doesn’t get any recognition in the MCU films):

 “A fan of the movies but also the comics would not be disoriented at all as to where this fits in the mythology,” he said. “If you look at the movies, which take place from — they started in 2003 to now — they don’t all line up perfectly. I’m not slavishly fitting them into a particular slot. But at the same time, if you like the world of the movies, there are definite nods to the movies. It exists in the same general universe.” Pressed as to whether there will be a direct tie-in with the features in a way on par as to how ABC’s Marvel drama Agents of SHIELD does, Nix said it will be “close, but not exactly. … In a general way, it acknowledges that events like the events that have happened in movies have happened. But it’s not up to date. It’s still evolving, so we’ll see how much that comes in. It’s certainly, ‘Since this happened in X-Men: Apocalypse, all of these things are happening,’ which I think is cool, but they’ve already done that.” 

• The X-Men TV series will be a shorter-order series, expected to be 10-13 episodes.

• Matt Nix further describes the X-Men TV series as: The project will feature a world in which mutant kids are forced to go on the run after manifesting their powers and how the established mutants have “something to say” about it all. Expect the kids to be teenagers. “Imagine a world where that’s going on and extend outward from there,” he said.  

• The X-Men TV series will feature new and established characters (but doesn’t sound like characters from the movies will be used):

 “[I get to invent] some. It’s designed to sidestep questions like, ‘Where is Wolverine?’ You have to answer those questions,” he said. “I didn’t want to do anything where it’s like, ‘Wolverine is just off-screen.’ It exists in a world where those questions are answered without needing to name a lot of names or spend a lot of time dwelling on that issue. Within that, there are a certain amount of [familiar] characters that I can use and am using and then other characters I’m inventing — but everything is invented with a nod toward the existing mythology. … When I was pitching the show, I pitched some characters that appear nowhere in the mythology but the guys from Marvel, when I started describing them, all gave each other knowing nods where [they understood what I was doing].”

• Fox is also developing a DC Black Lighting show, which won’t crossover with X-Men (which makes sense, and it’s odd reporters even asked):

“I think it’s far more likely the rival companies would put us both in a pit with a claw hammer and we’d have to fight it out and see who comes out bloody!”