MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios just hit bookstores and takes a deep dive into the origins and evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
TV line recently shared a quote about Marvel Television and ABC’s underdogs Inhumans TV series, reminding us that the original idea was to be a movie that hit theaters in July 2019. Despite comparisons to Game of Thronesthe big screen project was scrapped, but why was it never made?
It turns out that Marvel’s Creative Committee made the decision for characters like Daredevil, Blade, Ghost Rider, and Luke Cage to be handed over to Marvel Television mainly because they felt that Kevin Feige was busy enough with The Avengers.
It was in 2014 that former Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter and Creative Committee Chairman Alan Fine decided to take the spotlight away from the Fantastic Four and the X-Men in an effort to avoid free publicity in 20th Century Fox for movies with these characters. As a result, the focus shifted to the Inhumans.
According to the book, “Marvel Studios has been developing an Inhumans movie for years, but Feige was never satisfied with the script and didn’t want to fight with Fox on Perlmutter’s behalf. Once Feige pulled the Inhumans movie from the release schedule (in April 2016 ), Marvel Entertainment ordered Loeb to fast-track Inhumans content on television. Just two months later, the Inhumans appeared on Agents of SHIELD.”
From there the decision was made to launch one Inhumans TV series in IMAX theaters and then on ABC. The reviews were abysmal, and both the two-part premiere and subsequent episodes hit the giant screens. Alas for television, Inhumans it was a ratings drop and was later scrapped.
It is explained that, “Due to budget constraints, many of the Inhumans were quickly weakened. Medusa, the Inhuman queen, had her obnoxious red hair shaved off her head—expensive to render in CGI. The action could stay in one location (the show was filmed in island of Oahu, Hawaii).’
Oh, and for those of you who remain convinced that Marvel Studios will deliver one day Agents of SHIELD in the MCU, it is emphasized that they wanted and still want to distance themselves from Marvel Television as much as possible.
In fact, “When developing a film starring another dark supergroup, the Eternals, the creators were instructed that none of it could take place in Hawaii. The studio didn’t want any risk of the Inhumans being remembered by the audience.”
Last year it launched Marvel Studios Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and gave Anson Mount the chance to play a comic-accurate version of Black Bolt. This version of the hero came from Earth-838 and eventually got his head blown off the inside. Whether he or the rest of the Inhuman characters exist on Earth-616 is hard to say.
