By now, superhero TV fans are more or less used to series not maintaining much connection with their cinematic peers, but FX and FOX’s X-Men two-fer of Legion and an untitled mutant series sparks hope anew. To wit, X-Men director Bryan Singer says Legion could take place in the movie universe after all, while both “will relate to future X-Men movies.”

Take this with a grain of salt for the moment, as Legion creator Noah Hawley has repeatedly stressed that the new series takes place independent of the globe-hopping X-Men films. Still, Singer gave an intriguing quote at the Edinburgh Television Festival session (via THR), potentially implying otherwise:

[Legion is] part of the X-Men universe, but when you watched it, you wouldn’t have to label it, it could exist completely on its own.

That could more or less fit with prior quotes from FX boss John Landgraf:

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. 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.

Either way, there’s always the still-developing FOX mutant drama, which Singer offers “will relate to future X-Men movies,” and feature a “really ambitious and fun and very unique storyline.” By itself, “relate” is a pretty flexible word, but there’s every chance the on-the-run drama tries to involve famous mutants more actively than Legion, which seems mostly subject to Noah Hawley’s vision.

We’ll learn more as Legion gears up for a 2017 premiere, but are Singer’s words a more optimistic view of an extended X-Men universe?

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