FX's Legion was showcased today during the TCA Winter tour, where series creator Noah Hawley confirmed that Legion Season 2 will premiere in April, although an exact premiere date wasn't given. FX renewed Legion for Season 2 in March, just a month after the show's February premiere, although nothing about the plot for this new season was revealed by Noah Hawley at this time. With April just around the corner, though, we could be learning more about this show sooner rather than later. In another development from the TCA tour, it has also been confirmed that embattled filmmaker Bryan Singer is no longer an executive producer on the show. Here's what Noah Hawley had to say after the FX TCA panel.
"Bryan asked to take his name off the show, so we have done that."
Sources claimed that Bryan Singer had reached out to FX about having his name removed from the show, following the sexual misconduct allegations that have surfaced against him. The filmmaker was listed as an executive producer on the show when FX renewed the series in March, and he was one of the three executive producers that came over from the X-Men movie universe, along with Laura Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg. Noah Hawley also added that Bryan Singer had very little to do with the creative movement on the show as a whole, and his involvement was very limited, early on in development.
"Very early on in the conception of the show, I met him a couple of times. He was interested in directing the pilot, but once I stepped in to direct, I haven't spoken to him since that moment. Really, he was a name on the screen."
Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn revealed yesterday that he was "looking into" Bryan Singer's executive producer status on the other X-Men TV series, Fox's The Gifted. While the network brass are taking the allegations "very seriously," that situation is a bit more complicated, since Bryan Singer directed The Gifted pilot and is contractually guaranteed an executive producer credit on the show.
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. The cast also includes Jemaine Clement as Oliver Bird, Mackenzie Grey as The Eye and Quinton Boisclair as Devil with the Yellow Eyes. You can head on over to Deadline for more on the series.