Future of X- Men
DIRECTOR- writer- producer Bryan Singer, who is an exec producer on X- Men TV series Legion for FX, and Peter Rice, chairman and CEO of Fox Networks Group, discussed the genesis and future development of the X- Men franchise at the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week.
He said one of the reasons he was drawn to the first X- Men movie, released in 2000, was it resonated with him emotionally.
“There has to be something in the main character or in the story that I connect to. I have a knack for ensembles. I like groups of people. Each ( project) is individual. In X- Men it is just that feeling of being isolated,” he said.
“I had issues growing up with not being a good student and sexuality issues, whatever they were, and I identified with the X- Men characters as being outcasts, so I responded to that. And from there it grew into ‘ Wow! This is a cool universe.’ But I always knew I wanted to make the movies I waited in line to see as a kid: big- budget actionadventure movies.”
Singer recalled a crisis during the development of the first X- Men film, which he sees as “the birth of the modern comic- book movie.”
“X- Men collapsed – we lost our entire crew, we couldn’t get a budget or script, or anything. We were sitting on the floor of a small office in West L. A. pasting pieces of paper together trying to construct a story. It was the night before Thanksgiving. But we didn’t let it go... and part of that is we all knew what we were trying to do: make a serious story based in a comic universe; let’s take X- Men and make it real.”
Speaking about Legion, Singer underscored its connection with the movies. “What we are doing with Legion and the other X- Men television project will relate to future X- Men movies – whether it is Deadpool or X- Men sequels, and past ones,” he said.
Rice recalled a conversation with Singer about what an X- Men TV show would look like: “How do we ensure that it wasn’t a 45- minute attempt to make an X- Men movie. And again, to look for ( a writer- director) who had a really different, idiosyncratic personal filmmaking aesthetic, which is how we came to ( Fargo writer) Noah Hawley.”
Singer said Hawley has “created some extraordinary visuals to complement what will be a really ambitious and fun and very unique storyline.” – Reuters