The X-Men franchise has been doing quite
well in Fox's hands as of now. With three movies coming out next year, X-Men: Apocalypse, Ryan Reynold's spinoff Deadpool, and the Gambit movie lead by Channing Tatum already starting production soon in their New Orleans filming location. One might ask what's next for the mutants? Well apparently 20th
Century Fox is planning to make an X-Men TV series, and is currently in talks
with Marvel to finally greenlight the production of the show. Now this rumor
has been going on for a while in the internet, but now it seems like they're
close in to having the series started. There hasn't been any deal signed with
Marvel yet, but the company confirms that they are nearing a deal for a planned
long-running series, and not just a one time television run.
Television
Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden recently talked with The Hollywood Reporter
during the Television Critics Association press tour that they are hoping to
make an announcement soon. Here's what she has to say about the deal:
“[For] X-Men, we’re in negotiations with
Marvel. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to announce something soon. We’re not
closed on a deal yet but it’s something we’re definitely pursuing.”
It
should be told that a live-action X-Men TV series is a very tricky thing for
Fox to do considering that Marvel aren't particularly fond of sharing the
rights to what they have on hand without an incentive, now that they're doing
pretty good on their own. 20th Century Fox owns the movie rights for the X-Men
characters, but Marvel/Disney has the rights for anything outside of the films.
That is, Marvel needs to sign off on the deal for Fox to use their characters
in the small screen.
Another
thing to note is that Disney's ABC has plenty of Marvel shows as it is, with
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter, and another one in development. There's
also Marvel's Netflix shows featuring the Defenders series: Daredevil (who's
already on filming location for its second season), Jessica Jones, Luke Cage
and Iron Fist. TV series featuring Marvel characters seem to be working well
enough without help from Fox. That being said, Walden remains optimistic with
the deal:
“The characters from the X-Men franchise
are with Fox on the feature side so we won’t be including Marvel characters
that are at ABC with Disney. This will be exclusively the franchise as it has
existed at Fox.”
While
the deal is still underway, Fox has already hired Star Trek 3's Patrick McKay
and J.D. Payne to write the series, and sharing a "created by" credit
with 24's Evan Katz and Manny Coto.
It's
obvious to think that Fox would want to connect the series with the feature
films in some way, perhaps even featuring characters from the movie. But for
now, we'll have to wait and see if Marvel agrees with the deal so production
can start once and for all.
0 comments:
Post a Comment