Marvel and Fox developing two X-related shows
playdohsrepublic
Posts: 1,377
Looks like Fox and Marvel have learned to play relatively nice
Marvel and Fox Are Working on Two X-Men Shows, Hellfire and Legion
Marvel and Fox Are Working on Two X-Men Shows, Hellfire and Legion
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[Conjecture Warning] Seems like that article misses some potential speculative considerations. I for one suspect this might mean that Marvel has made a deal with FOX to get back the Fantastic Four rights. With the recent reboot being such a box office bomb, potentially the FF rights could soon be owned solely by Marvel Studios. And FOX gets not one, but two television shows featuring X-characters.
And what did Marvel get?
We'll see.
"But the news releases announcing the shows conspicuously lack any use of the terms "mutant" or "X-Men," or even any character names other than David Haller. This appears to be the closest deal Fox and Marvel have had in their notoriously chilly relationship, but we're still probably a long way away from The Young Wolverine Chronicles or Road Trippin' With Storm and Jubilee."
It would seem, given the contention over the TV rights between Marvel and Fox, that they are picking shows that are safely distanced from the X-Men themselves. (And where the powers and character designs involved are at a TV scale).
If Legion goes forward, I wouldn't be surprised if his parentage is implied, but the name Xavier is never said in the show. And I wouldn't expect Emma Frost to be in Hellfire (or, if she is, it will be as an analogue with a different name.)
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
"Exclusive: we've heard that Marvel's struck a deal that will see Fantastic Four folded back into the MCU, with the first film due in 2020...
Given that Fox's Fantastic Four reboot sputtered so dramatically over the summer, it's little surprise that the studio's redoubling its attention on a property with a proven history at the box office: X-Men."
why would Fox not start with New Mutants or Jamie Maddox Private Detective or something more popular and interesting???
looking forward to Galactus and Dr Doom showing up in the MCU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, while I know they were just thrown out there as examples, I would guess that a New Mutants show- especially if it is meant to be a class at the Xavier School- is too close to the movies (I mean, X-Men: First Class was basically a New Mutants movie, it is just that they were the first generation. So a New Mutants show feels like it just an X-Men: First Class sequel watered down for TV.) Expensive, too, as a class of mutants would need an ensemble of mutant powers and looks.
And, as much as I would love the idea of a Jamie Maddox PD series, I think it would be cost prohibitive. Multiplying an actor, especially past a two-multiple scene, gets really expensive and time consuming to produce. Orphan Black for example, maybe the closest thing to a Multiple Man show on TV right now, has lots of two-clone scenes, but having a as many as four clones in a scene at once tends to be a budget-and-schedule busting thing that they do only in the final episode of each season. For those interested in the technical/production side of it, there is a little feature on the 'four-clone dinner party' scene at the end of last season. (And, mild spoilers for Orphan Black Season 4, at least insofar as you see who is still alive at the end of that season).
To techno-dolly and do that four clone scene well took two production days. A Maddrox series, at least one where his multiples are often together in the same shot, would be crazy expensive. (Fun, but crazy expensive).
With Bryan Singer at the helm, no less than two show-runners from the '24' series, and Jeph Loeb on board, I'm confident these two shows will be worth checking out. Couln't be worse than Agents of SHIELD or Gotham.
As opposed to, say, a scene where a dame walks into an office that has three different Jamie Maddox's in it, shot on a real set, and on a TV budget, where you have to have live actors interact and in dialogue scenes with another multiplied live actor. And, for the premise of the show to make sense, you would probably have to do that trick every episode. (Unless the premise is there is a guy whose multiples are spread out living their own lives, to allow for more single-Maddox scenes).
Not saying it is impossible. But on the face of it, it doesn't seem like a very TV-budget friendly idea. It is probably one of the things they like about Legion. Mental powers are much cheaper.
Sure. But Multiplicity reportedly had a $45M budget (in late 1990s dollars). And maybe the fact that they tried to get away with too many cheap-looking, gimmicky tricks was part of why audiences didn't respond too well to it.
And, of course, hypothetically, a Maddox show could be done well on the cheap. Because hypothetically anything can be written and executed well. My point is only that, even for a smart show that does things very well in a way that audiences and critics have responded to, scenes with multiples is a big, expensive undertaking for Orphan Black. And I think a Maddox show is not an intuitive choice for TV. (I would also say that, as Maddox multiples are usually only superficially different than Jamie, as opposed to being clones who grew up and were nurtured apart, who have had a whole life experience mostly not knowing they were clones, the Orphan Black model is a much more rewarding way to give an actor a lot of range to play (and for audiences to potentially be impressed by all these truly different characters). Whereas the Maddox multiples don't tend to exist long enough to be invested in as separate beings. And, at least in most of the comics. usually are pretty broad strokes ('I'm angry Jamie!", "I'm cowardly Jamie!', etc.) There was one exception where, in one of my favorite X-Factor issues, there was a multiple that had been living apart long enough to have his own life and identity. That was a very Orphan Black-like story, and would have been a great episode for TV. But I think the usual way that Maddox uses his powers is a better fit with comics, or a spectacular sequence in an X-Men film (like Quicksilver's set piece in Days of Future Past), and to me makes less sense as a TV premise.
i think a great budget friendly procedural show would be CYPHER