Fox’s ‘X-Men’ Project ‘Hellfire’ Searching For New Showrunner As Evan Katz & Manny Coto Focus On ’24: Legacy’

Following Fox’s pilot order to 24: Legacy, 24 alums Evan Katz and Manny Coto, who wrote the pilot script and are executive producers, have exited the X-Men-themed Hellfire (working title), which the two created with Patrick McKay (Star Trek 3) and JD Payne (Star Trek 3). The move was confirmed to Deadline by Fox chairman Dana Walden earlier today.

I hear there has been a detailed treatment written for the project, which is still in development, but now a search is under way for a new showrunnner to shepherd it. That showrunner will work with executive producers Shuler Donner, Singer, Kinberg, Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. I hear that the new showrunner will hire a writer, so there may be new scribes on the project too. (McKay and Payne had previously been set as writers, supervised by Coto). The existing outline would likely be scrapped.

Set in the late 1960s, Hellfire, produced by 20th Century Fox TV and Marvel Television, with 20th Century Fox handling the physical production – follows a young Special Agent who learns that a power-hungry woman with extraordinary abilities is working with a clandestine society of millionaires – known as “The Hellfire Club” – to take over the world. A different version of The Hellfire Club was previously seen as the primary antagonists of X-Men: First Class, led by Kevin Bacon’s Sebastian Shaw.