Fox Confirms Plans for An X-Men TV Series

[Derek Metaltron]

If I keep whispering 'Excalibur' under my breath long enough do you think it'll be that?

But seriously, either X-Factor or New Mutants would be fine too. I wonder if they should consider having Kelsey Grammar in the 'Professor' role, given that he was interesting in playing Beast again?

[Mike O]

Go the Generation X route (or New Mutants if that's your style, though Gen X makes a better title for a TV show). Play up the school route, set it in Massachusetts to give it some separation and avoid the need for all the big movie players making regular appearances.

[Cyke]

I'd love an X-Factor Investigations show that would be much like Agents of SHIELD in that movie characters periodically show up (the book rarely had guest stars anyway). But X-Factor is far more suited for Netflix. I fear that Fox doing X-Factor would be a bit too cliche ridden, too cheeky, too smart-ass (I mean, moreso than the balance achieved in the books).

[Ceebiro]

Villains - Nathaniel Essex, Graydon Creed, a modern Hellfire Club, Bastion, whichever program produced X-23.

The X-Men have a LOOOOONG list of villains they can exhaust that the movies haven't even glanced the surface of.

[MarvelMaster616]

I would gladly trade this for a second season of the Wolverine and the X-men cartoon. I think Fox is WAY behind the curve with X-men. Shows like Gotham, Agents of SHIELD, and Constantine have set a bar that I can't see the X-men achieving, especially in a TV show with a limited budget. If they try, it's going to become a SHIELD rip-off. And I'd rather not see that.

[Punisher007]

Jumping to some MAJOR conclusions there. Plus AOS, while it's gotten quite a bit better, isn't setting any "bars" that need to be raised. Anyway, I'm kind of partial to New Mutants or X-Factor myself.

[Ambaryerno]

Oh okay, thanks!



I think the movies in their desperation have run the well dry on all the good X-Men villains. Otherwise you'd end up with a show like Gotham where you're constantly up against all the D list villains, which would be terrible.

It'd probably be better to just make the universe completely seperate, but then they have the problems of they can't really use any well know characters because the movies colour people's impressions quite a lot.

I don't see how they can do it without it being a big flop tbh. Unless they can somehow convince one of the movie's A Lister actors to star in it which seems so very unlikely.

Patrick Stewart does a lot of TV. Anna Paquin is primarily a TV actress. Even Halle Berry is doing television now.

The days where seeing an A-lister doing television meant it was sweeps, or a sign their career was winding down, are LONG gone.

[juggalord]

Also, X-Factor or bust.

I vote for New Mutants. They can explain the lack of other X-Men on the show the way that the original graphic novel did, which is to say that Xavier believe them to have died away on a mission. Doing New Mutants has a few advantages.

1) These are character who are young, which means that you don't have to cast well known actors.
2) Sunspot aside, they've never been done before in live action.
3) Patrick Stewart has already expressed a desire to revisit Xavier. A TV show would allow him to do that in a way that wouldn't interfere with the movies.
4) This opens the door to everything from the Massachusetts Academy to Limbo to even a swanky CGI Warlock.

However, given the limitations of budgets and FOX's own habits, I think that they'll probably opt for X-Factor Investigations though. A mutant X-Files? Sounds about right.

[JaggedFel]

Why should anyone have any faith that Fox would do this any kind of justice?

Well network tv tends to love procedurals. Also I think most of X-Factor has pretty cheap powers. Although Flash with a CW budget has done a good job

[Zartan's Brother]

X-Factor Investigations was practically made for this format. I'd love to see it happen.

[juggalord]

I think the movies in their desperation have run the well dry on all the good X-Men villains.

Hardly. It all depends on what you're looking for and what you classify as D-list. To me, it all depends on what the hero team is. There are a lot of X-villains left who wouldn't necessarily mix it up with every group. The semi-reboot done by FC & DoFP has made it so that pretty much everybody's still on the table.... if done right.

If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-Men_enemies you'll notice that there are tons of unused characters there, some still ripe with potential. Not every rogue has to be Magneto or Apocalypse level, especially if you're looking at pairing them against the likes of X-Factor, New Mutants, or X-team.

I'll be happy with whatever FOX puts out there as long as we don't get a single character show. Never been a fan of solo books. The X-men books, imo, have always worked better with teams.

[juggalord]

Well network tv tends to love procedurals. Also I think most of X-Factor has pretty cheap powers. Although Flash with a CW budget has done a good job

I think that the biggest hurdle isn't money, believe it or not. A lot of effects that would've been super expensive or even impossible 10 years ago are now much cheaper and easier to do. The real hurdle here is one of being gun shy. These shows need to get over their fear of costumes and code names. Flash is trying and doing decently well on this front, but other shows in the genre are still afraid of being campy. They're not embracing the stuff that made the comics famous. Batman `66, as fun as it was, serves as reminder of what not to do in a modern superhero show. It's a fine line that most shows are afraid to walk.

[simbob4000]

I would gladly trade this for a second season of the Wolverine and the X-men cartoon. I think Fox is WAY behind the curve with X-men. Shows like Gotham, Agents of SHIELD, and Constantine have set a bar that I can't see the X-men achieving, especially in a TV show with a limited budget. If they try, it's going to become a SHIELD rip-off. And I'd rather not see that.

Fox's Sleepy Hollow show, which is actually a show they make, is way better than all three of those. Although the idea of Agents of SHIELD setting a bar for quality is pretty funny.

[PretenderNX01]

I think the movies in their desperation have run the well dry on all the good X-Men villains.

So.....Magneto is the only good X-villain? I mean they basically used him, a little Mystique and the general guy. Oh and there was some version of Sebastian Shaw who frankly isn't a household name. So it's like 4 or 5 if you count Peter Dinklage. Yeah I'm thinking the comics still have plenty to choose from.

But this is a comic book forum- we must declare everything a flop just at the thought of it. After all, no one is going to see a movie about d-listers like Guardians of the Galaxy.

And even if we want movies that are more than just Xavier and Magneto we apparently don't want X-Men projects that feature other characters.

Fox's Sleepy Hollow show, which is actually a show they make, is way better than all three of those. Although the idea of Agents of SHIELD setting a bar for quality is pretty funny.

Sure, it's so good ratings have dropped in like half.

I'll stick with AOS and Gotham and see how this show is handled.

[healed1337]

I'll wait and see. Days of Future Past was good, but Fox has yet to prove that they have any idea what to do with this franchise.