The finale of David Haller’s mutant adventure on FX is near, as Legion concludes at the end of season three. Speaking with Collider, executive producers Lauren Shuler Donner and John Cameron explained why they decided it was best “not to imitate the movies.” This led to their setting the show in a different X-Men universe.
“I come at it from a different angle, after producing most of the X-Men movies,” Donner said. “The best way to come to television was not to follow or imitate the movies, but to start in a different universe, so it has been enormously successful, in that respect, in terms of affecting the industry. It’s tricky because sometimes you can do it to the point where people don’t understand. You can emphasize the visuals so much that you lose the heart and soul of the narrative.”
RELATED – Dan Stevens Teases X-Men Connections in Legion’s Final Season
The unconnected approach also informs the collaborative process they have with the directors who work on the show.
“We’ve never said to any director (on Legion) that their approach is wrong, or that it doesn’t fit our blueprint, or that they can’t bring innovative and cool ideas to the process,” Cameron revealed. “It’s really exciting for our directors to come in, for that very reason. If you can tell the story that Noah’s trying to tell, the manner in which you tell it is 90-some percent up to you. Occasionally, there will be some wild ideas that we go, ‘Yeah, we’re not doing that,’ but it’s usually because schedule and money doesn’t permit it. But for the most part, you can see the individual approaches, from episode to episode. There’s a wide variety of visual approaches to the material, and that’s pretty exciting and cool.”
Legion’s final season airs on FX on Mondays. Do you think the producers made the right call? Or should they have set it in a shared universe? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
