Marvel and Fox Networks signed last month to produce two new TV series set in the world of "X-Men," "Hellfire" and "Legion," with the latter described by "X-Men" producer Simon Kinberg as the "Breaking Bad" of superhero TV series.
According to Collider, "Legion," which is set up at FX and to be penned by "Fargo" showrunner Noah Hawley, will feature the story of David Haller, a man diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been in and out of the hospital his entire life. His life changed when he met a strange patient at the hospital, who tells him that the visions he sees and the voices he hears are real.
"X-Men" producer Simon Kinberg, in an interview with Collider, said that "Legion" is "super active," saying, "Actually the idea for Legion, it began in conversations with Lauren Schuler Donner and Bryan Singer and Noah [Hawley] and me," Kinberg said.
"I was sitting in a car outside a restaurant about to go into dinner. It was really early on in the process, like one of the first conversations, and Noah and I were on a call just the two of us just riffing ideas, and I was sitting outside what I thought was gonna be like a 10 minute call and I ended up sitting out there for three and a half hours, missing the dinner," Kinberg added.
"Everybody had not only had the dinner but went home, and I just got off that call being like, 'It's midnight in Moscow but we have to make this show with this guy because he's so brilliant.' So that's really ramping up now, the production's ramping up to start shooting at the beginning of the year with FX," he added.
Kinberg added that doing "Legion" with FX will give them the opportunity to do something different, saying, "I mean the thing that's cool and that's the hope in branching out to TV is that we can tell these X-Men stories in a slightly different way and even with a slightly different tone."
"So the TV shows give us an opportunity to go even further and certainly what I'm seeing on 'Legion' with Noah and FX is an intent to do something completely original in the genre, in some ways to sort of blow up the paradigm of comic book or superhero stories and almost do our 'Breaking Bad' of superhero stories," Kinberg said further.
Screen Rant, in its report, said that for Kinberg to compare "Legion" with "Breaking Bad" are really big words. No superhero TV series has ever achieved the appeal and critical acclaim that "Breaking Bad" has earned for itself although the report noted that, yes, it can be done. Although it would be too early to say for the "Legion" series.
