MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios has just arrived in bookstores and it takes a deep dive into the origin and evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
TV Line recently shared an excerpt regarding Marvel Television and ABC's ill-fated Inhumans TV series, reminding us that the original idea had been for it to be a movie released in theaters back in July 2019. Despite comparisons to Game of Thrones, the big screen project was scrapped, but why did it never happen?
It turns out Marvel's Creative Committee made the decision for characters like Daredevil, Blade, Ghost Rider, and Luke Cage to be handed over to Marvel Television, primarily because they felt Kevin Feige was busy enough working on The Avengers.
It was in 2014 that former Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter and Creative Committee chair Alan Fine decided to take the spotlight off the Fantastic Four and X-Men in an effort to avoid giving 20th Century Fox free publicity for movies featuring those characters. As a result, the focus shifted to the Inhumans.
According to the book, "Marvel Studios had been developing an Inhumans movie for years, but Feige was never satisfied with the script and wasn’t eager to do battle with Fox on Perlmutter’s behalf. As soon as Feige pulled the Inhumans movie from the release schedule (in April 2016), Marvel Entertainment ordered Loeb to fast-track Inhumans content on TV. Just two months later, the Inhumans appeared on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
From there, the decision was made to launch an Inhumans TV series in IMAX theaters and then on ABC. Reviews were abysmal and both the two-part premiere and subsequent episodes were pulled from the giant-sized screens. Alas, on television, Inhumans was a ratings flop and later scrapped.
It's explained that, "Because of budgetary constraints, many of the Inhumans were swiftly depowered. Medusa, the Inhuman queen, had her prehensile red hair — expensive to render in CGI — shaved off her head. The teleporting dog Lockjaw had to be grievously wounded so most of the action could stay in a single location (the show filmed on the Hawaiian island of Oahu)."
Oh, and for those of you who remain convinced that Marvel Studios will one day bring Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into the MCU, it's emphasised that they were and still are keen to distance themselves from Marvel Television as much as possible.
In fact, "When it developed a movie starring another obscure superteam, the Eternals, the creators were instructed that none of it could take place in Hawaii. The studio didn’t want any risk that audiences might be reminded of the Inhumans."
Last year, Marvel Studios released Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and gave Anson Mount the opportunity to play a comic-accurate version of Black Bolt. That version of the hero hailed from Earth-838 and ultimately had his head blown up from the inside; whether he or the rest of the Inhuman characters exist on Earth-616 is hard to say.