Pic from The Official Mutant X site
Sliptream News 1/22/01
Tribune Entertainment Develops Mutant X
By Christian January 22, 2001 - 3:18 PM
With the success of 'Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda', as well as of shows such as 'Earth: Final Conflict' and 'BeastMaster', in recent years Tribune Entertainment has clearly become one of the leading companies in the syndicated action market. At this year's meeting of the National Association of Television Program Executives, taking place this week in Las Vegas, Tribune will be trying to use that leading position to sell a new show it's developing: 'Mutant X', a new weekly series concept developed together with Marvel Comics.
In December of last year, Mutant X executive producer Rick Ungar talked to Fandom.com's Comics Newsarama about the plot of the series, which at that time had already been in development for a few months. The series will take place in a society where the government has secretly developed genetic engineering technology, allowing people with the right connections to have their children genetically perfected at birth. Unfortunately, after a certain numbers of years the manipulated genes of the children start acting up, causing the engineered beings to mutate, and thereby exposing the secret government program. Such proof is not considered tolerable by the government, and it forms the Office Of Mutant Research, which has as its sole mission to wipe out all the mutants. The 'Mutant X' from the title are a group of genetically engineered humans who try to save fellow mutants from the governments, and recruit them for their own mission to establish peace between regular and genetically enhanced mutants.
Earlier, it was reported that the series was based on a parallel universe spin-off of 'X-Men', but according to Tribune the TV show will look and feel nothing like the 'Mutant X' comic, and there is no formal relationship between the 'X-Men' universe and this series. Presumably this formal separation was made at least in part to avoid legal conflicts with 20th Century Fox, which owns the rights to the 'X-Men' movie franchise, but undoubtedly Tribune is still hoping that the success of 'X-Men' will also lead to a higher popularity for this new mutant series.
Thanks to Tribune's experience in distributing syndication programming, initial interest for the series should be high. As was the case with Andromeda, Tribune has already been able to sell the show to a large number of television stations (including 22 of its own), and in early December the show had been cleared in 60 percent of the market. At the NATPE conference, Tribune will attempt to sell the show in even more markets, competing with five other action hours, including 'The Adventures of Jules Verne' and 'Colosseum'.
According to an article by Marc Berman at MediaWeek, Tribune is seen as one of the syndicators coming to NATPE with plenty of momentum. The article pointed to Andromeda's success, with the show averaging a 3.9 for the first half of its season, beating Xena's ratings by 17%, and becoming the highest-rated freshman first-run weekly since 'Earth: Final Conflict', also a Tribune production. "Given that we will be at the convention with three returning hours [Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict, Beastmaster] and the upcoming Mutant X, it's fair to say we have cornered the market in action hours," concurred Tribune Entertainment president Dick Askin in the article.
'Mutant X' is being developed by Phil Segal, who as Tribune VP of scripted programming and development currently also has an overseeing role on Andromeda, so hopefully some of Andromeda's ingredients for success will also make it into 'Mutant X'. We'll keep you updated if there is more major news on the series.
© Slipstream News
Mutant X Articles Index
Return to The Mutant X Warehouse