Legion is Unrelated to the X-Men Movies, But New FOX Series Is

FX and Marvel Entertainment‘s Legion series from Noah Hawley is getting a lot of buzz before its February 8 premiere, but many fans wonder how it will connect to the X-Men movie. “Not at all” is apparently the answer, as franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner confirmed to IGN, although she did tease that Matt Nix’s upcoming X-Men series for FOX will have direct connections.

“We’re making it separate. We’re our own world,” said Donner of Legion, confirming that if Professor X got involved it would not be the James McAvoy/Patrick Stewart iteration. “Matt’s is much more a part the world in terms of there are mutants, mutants are hated and there are Sentinels — though very different from what we’ve seen before. You feel like you’re here in the X-Men world. With ‘Legion,’ we’re our own universe. It gives Noah the freedom to do what he wants to do. Because we play with so many different timelines, and we rebooted and not really rebooted and all that, we felt like, OK, we’re going to throw it out there and hope the fans accept it.”

So it seems Nix’s series will be slightly more connected to the X-Men universe, but in a superficial way. Donner then confirmed that, like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, even Nix’s show may connect to the X-Men movies, but the movies will be under no obligation to connect with it.

“The cinematic universe will not worry about ‘Legion,'” Donner continued. “They will not worry about these TV worlds at all. They will just continue in the way that they have been continuing, and there is some great stuff that we are developing. I can just say it’s going to be new and different, and yet ‘Legion’ and our other show, we’re not going to get in each other’s way.”

Fargo‘s Noah Hawley serves as Executive Producer on Legion, along with Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Jeph Loeb, Jim Chory and John Cameron. Legion is the latest project from Hawley and Cameron, two of the executive producers of the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning FX limited series Fargo.

Legion, based on the Marvel Comics by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, is the story of David Haller (Dan Stevens), a troubled young man who may be more than human. Diagnosed as schizophrenic as a child, David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. Now in his early 30s and institutionalized once again, David loses himself in the rhythm of the structured regimen of life in the hospital: breakfast, lunch, dinner, therapy, medications, sleep. David spends the rest of his time in companionable silence alongside his chatterbox friend Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), a fellow patient whose life-long drug and alcohol addiction has done nothing to quell her boundless optimism that her luck is about to change. The pleasant numbness of David’s routine is completely upended with the arrival of a beautiful and troubled new patient named Syd (Rachel Keller). Inexplicably drawn to one another, David and Syd share a startling encounter, after which David must confront the shocking possibility that the voices he hears and the visions he sees may actually be real.

A haunted man, David escapes from the hospital and seeks shelter with his sister Amy (Katie Aselton). But Amy’s concern for her brother is trumped by her desire to protect the picture perfect suburban life she’s built for herself. Eventually, Syd guides David to Melanie Bird (Jean Smart), a nurturing but demanding therapist with a sharp mind and unconventional methods. She and her team of specialists – Ptonomy (Jeremie Harris), Kerry (Amber Midthunder) and Cary (Bill Irwin) – open David’s eyes to an extraordinary new world of possibilities.