Marvel’s invasion of the airwaves is intensifying with the announcement that Fox is developing a series tentatively titled Hellfire and its sister network FX has ordered a pilot for a series titled Legion — both related to the X-Men universe.
Legion introduces David Haller, who has struggled with mental illness since he was a teenager. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. But after a strange encounter with a fellow patient, he’s confronted with the possibility that the voices he hears and the visions he sees might be real.
Noah Hawley (Fargo, Bones) will write the pilot and serve as an executive producer along with X-Men movie franchise veterans Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg; as well as Marvel’s head of television Jeph Loeb, Jim Chory and John Cameron.
Hellfire, meanwhile, is set in the late 1960s and follows a young special agent who learns that a power-hungry woman with extraordinary abilities is working with a clandestine society of millionaires – known as The Hellfire Club – to take over the world.
Hellfire is a co-production of 20th Century Fox Television and Marvel Television. Evan Katz, Manny Coto, Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne are co-creators. McKay and Payne will write the pilot script, based on a story by Katz, Coto, McKay and Payne.
Shuler Donner, Singer, Kinberg, Loeb and Chory will executive-produce the pilot, alongside Katz and Coto, who will serve as showrunners.
For those needing a refresher, David Haller’s Legion was introduced in the mid-1980s as the son of Charles Xavier. A mutant with immense power and split personalities, Legion was an unpredictable opponent for the X-Men and their allies and his actions set in motion the events of the epic Age of Apocalypse series in 1995.
The Hellfire Club are opponents of the X-Men stretching back to the iconic Dark Phoenix comic book story of 1980. They also were seen in Matthew Vaughn’s 1962-set feature film, X-Men: First Class.
