In August, during the TCAs, Fox was negotiating a deal with Marvel to produce X-Men TV shows, following Marvel’s success with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, and The CW’s Arrow and The Flash for Warner Bros. Television.

Fox currently has Gotham, the Batman prequel that centers on James Gordon’s early career as a Gotham City detective and a young Bruce Wayne’s journey to becoming the Dark Knight. But it appears the studio wants more, and is going to dip into a Marvel property that they already own. A new report says that Fox has made some in-house hires to work on two TV series: one centered on Professor X’s son called Legion, and another on the villainous Hellfire Club called Hellfire. They will also be working with Marvel on these two X-Men shows. More on the story below.

Bryan Singer, Lauren Shuler Donner, Simon Kinberg, Jim Chory, and Jeph Loeb will be executively producing Hellfire and Legion. The latter already has a pilot order with FX (a FOX channel), and Fargo creator Noah Hawley will write the episode, as well as executive produce with Fargo‘s John Cameron. The title character is actually Professor Charles Xavier’s son, who possesses the ability to “absorb a person’s psyche into his as an alternate personality and manifest their superhuman abilities when they are dominant.”

Here’s the logline,

Evan Katz and Manny Coto (24) will be Hellfire‘s showrunners. The group was first introduced in X-Men: First Class. In the film, the illustrious group is led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who would use the Cuban Missile Crisis to start World War III and assure the mutant’s rise to power. Other members include Emma Frost (January Jones), Riptide (Álex González), and Azazel (Jason Flemyng). Here’s how Variety describes the show,

Now this is just speculation, but since the series is set in the 1960s, there is a small chance that Bacon and Jones could reprise their respective roles. Bacon’s last appearance on a TV series was for The Following, while Jones appeared in the first season of The Last Man On Earth. Both shows aired on Fox.

This is one of the first major Marvel TV deals to be inked since the Marvel’s corporate restructuring last month. While Marvel Studios and Marvel TV are now separate entities, the overall MCU stays intact, with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige taking care of the film production on the west coast (reporting to Alan Horn), while Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, takes care of the TV side of things on the East Coast.

It’s not clear if these two X-Men shows will be connected to the current X-Men film universe. Considering that shared universes are a hot trend these days, it only makes sense to have them connected. The fact that the Fox X-Men brain trust will be serving as executive producers on both shows indicates that there may be a connection, at least very loose ones. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as the news develops.

[Source: Variety]