FX President John Landgraf confirmed at the Television Critics Association press tour today that Legion will likely premiere on the network by the end of 2016, but also revealed that there are no plans for the series to tie into the X-Men Universe. In fact, it's set in an entirely different world! "It's not in the continuity of those films in the sense the current X-Men films take place in a universe in which everybody on planet Earth is aware of the existence of mutants," he said. "The series Legion takes place in a parallel universe, if you will, in which the US government is in the early days of being aware that something called mutants exist but the public is not. I wouldn't foresee characters moving back and forth because they really are parallel universes." That's a shame, but Fargo's Noah Hawley is such a genius that Legion being incredible is near enough a guarantee.
Adding that the show will take place in the past, Landgraf said that the show will run for ten episodes and indicated that we won't see characters from the movies factoring into it in any way. "It’s still in process but I think at the moment they’re all new characters... But I’m not 100% sure thatll be the case by the time it airs." As for how it's developing, he said: "We're quite well along. We've had a writing staff working. We've seen not only the pilot but several episodes and we're well in process of casting. I would anticipate that Legion would go on the air some time in 2016, this year. We don't tend to order series straight out the gate because I still really believe in the pilot process. We really think of it as a series. We're already in active prep. We're building sets, and our writers room has already been assembled. ... The vast majority of things that we pilot do go forward to series. I'm pretty optimistic about Legion. The scripts are extraordinary."