The most powerful mutant alive is officially coming to FX. Marvel’s Legion has been ordered to series by FX, with an eight episode first season slated to premiere in early 2017.
Legion is based on David Haller, a character in Marvel’s comic book universe who was the son of X-Men founder Professor Xavier. Haller also suffered from numerous multiple personalities, each of which had their own mutant superpower. For the Legion TV series, Dan Stevens will portray Haller, as the show explores his journey of discovery about himself and the power at his command.
Stevens is joined on the show by a very impressive cast that includes Rachel Keller, Jean Smart, Aubrey Plaza, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton, and Bill Irwin. Given the nature of Haller’s mental problems, it’s likely that several of these performers could portray aspects of Haller himself.
As noted earlier this month in our special report, the Legion TV series will share a world with the X-Men films, but the characters may not intersect. Theoretically, the show could also keep Professor X’s connection to Haller, but that has yet to be confirmed one way or the other. Hopefully it will be more than the one-way relationship between the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and the TV shows that have yet to get a shout out on the big screen.
That eight episode order is also quite small by American TV standards, but Legion showrunner Noah Hawley is also working on Fargo season 3, which means that his time is at a premium. Presumably future seasons of Legion could get bigger episode orders.
The first season of Legion will begin filming this summer.
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Images: Marvel Comics/FX
