Marvel works up Fox, FX comic book dramas

US broadcast network Fox is to coproduce an action-adventure drama based on a Marvel Entertainment comic franchise, with Marvel also working up an FX drama.

Hellfire will be a coproduction of Disney-owned Marvel Television and 20^th Century Fox Television. Evan Katz (24: Live Another Day), Manny Coto (24), Patrick McKay (Star Trek 3) and J.D. Payne (Star Trek 3) are co-creators.

The FX Networks pilot, Legion, will come from Marvel TV and FX Productions. The Noah Hawley-helmed project follows a schizophrenic man who begins to realise the voices in his head may be real.

Set in the Sixties, Helfire will follow a young special agent who discovers a power-hungry woman with superhuman abilities is working with an underground society of millionaires, known as ‘The Hellfire Club’, to take over the world.

“We are thrilled to partner with Marvel to bring this world to television and build upon the vibrant mythology that has captivated fans for years,” said David Madden, Fox Broadcasting Company’s president, entertainment.

“These powerful and dynamic characters are complicated and larger-than-life, the pace and visual imagination are unrelenting, and the story takes place during one of the most explosive eras in recent history.”

McKay and Payne are writing the pilot, with Lauren Shuler Donner (X-Men: Days of Future Past), Bryan Singer (X-Men), Simon Kinberg (X-Men), Jeph Loen (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Jim Chory (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) executive producing.

Shuler Donner, Singer, Kinberg, Loeb and Chory are also attached to Legion, along with John Cameron (Fargo). Hawley, who created Fargo for FX, will write the pilot and serve as an executive producer.

Katz and Coto are executive producers and showrunners of Hellfire. Should the show go to series, it will sit alongside superhero-themed drama Gotham on the Fox slate.