Why did Marvel's Inhumans fail for ABC

[Hawkee]

Today I started watching Marvel's Inhumans on Disney+ after finishing Marvel's Secret Invasion and I can say that Inhumans looks amazing and it's a shame that ABC cancelled Inhumans because it seemed to be a great show. Of course what inspired me to watch this show was Anson Mount and Black Bolt and I think Anson Mount is flawless as Black Bolt and this was the show that made Anson Mount a household name and since I adore Black Bolt so much I just had to start this show to see how great it was. Why didn't ABC give Marvel's Inhumans a second chance because this show looks good but deserved a second season?

[Hawkee]

I think Marvel's Inhumans was given poor promotion by ABC because I think ABC wanted to have a Marvel lineup but it failed because when you look at it Inhumans is a great series and it could've led to a Marvel Inhumans movie or a movie devoted to the character Black Bolt. But out of all the Marvel ABC shows Marvel's Inhumans deserved more promotion

[TMC]

How Marvel’s Inhumans Became a Radioactive Property in the MCU (Exclusive Book Excerpt)

BY MATT WEBB MITOVICH

OCTOBER 10, 2023 7:13 AM

So poorly conceived (and in turn received) was Marvel’s Inhumans, the Royal Family at the heart of the ABC TV series became persona non grata in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Out today, the book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios (by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards; shop Amazon) delivers a super amount of detail on the origin and evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — from almost-castings to backstage beefs to the myriad difficult decisions made every step of the way. And while MCU focuses largely on the films that comprise the titular cinematic universe, it also unearths a ton of information about the live-action TV series that came and went over the years — on ABC, Netflix, Hulu, Freeform, FX and now Disney+.

Inhumans starred Anson Mount (then of Hell on Wheels fame) as Black Bolt, king of the Royal Family of Attilan, a city situated inside a crater on Earth’s moon. A society of people whose individual powers were awakened by terrigen crystals, the Inhumans peacefully resided in Attilan until the emergence of the occasional Inhuman on Earth roused a debate. Black Bolt believed that Earth’s Inhumans could be located and invited to Attilan, while his brother Maximus (Game of Thrones‘ Iwan Rheon) vehemently believed the opposite, that it was time for all Inhumans to relocate to — and take over? — Earth. The cast also included Serinda Swan (Graceland) as the Royal Family’s queen, Medusa, Isabelle Cornish as Crystal, a princess, and Ken Leung (Lost) and Eme Ikwuakor as the “visionary” Karnak and guardian Gorgon.

Two weeks ahead of its September 2017 ABC debut, a 75-minute edit of Inhumans‘ double-episode premiere bowed on IMAX screens and mustered just $1.1 million in its opening weekend. The series’ ABC premiere drew 3.8 million viewers (and a TVLine reader grade of “C-“), though the eight-episode run would average just 2.6 mil. The following May, the Marvel series was unceremoniously cancelled.

Thing is, the Inhumans were originally intended to make their live-action debut in a feature film that was penciled in to hit theaters in July 2019 and close out Phase 3 of the MCU. Said film, though, wound up being quietly dropped from Marvel Studios’ slate; months later, the Inhumans TV series was announced.

TVLine’s exclusive excerpt from the “Remote Control” chapter of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, below, picks up not long after Marvel regained the rights to Daredevil, Blade, Ghost Rider, Luke Cage and other comic book characters. Marvel’s Creative Committee — a board of comic book writers who gave periodic feedback on every Marvel Studios production — decided that Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige was sufficiently busy overseeing the Avengers’ big-screen exploits, so these “wayward characters” were handed over to Jeph Loeb’s Marvel Television arm.

Inhumans was the pet project of controversial Marvel executive Ike Perlmutter. Unfortunately, it became the very first entry in the seemingly-untouchable Marvel Cinematic Universe to be universally despised by those that saw it. Its problems included an abrupt return to a Movie Superheroes Wear Black aesthetic (after the MCU had done so much to make comic-accurate visuals acceptable onscreen); recurring Special Effect Failures in spite of a budget reportedly larger than any other Marvel series; and most of all, some of the most shameless Protagonist-Centered Morality in recent memory: The Designated Heroes are the ruling family of an Inhuman colony on the moon, who enforce an oppressive caste system that condemns those born with less-than-flashy superpowers to backbreaking labor while the chosen few live in luxury. The Designated Villain Maximus is a victim of the caste system and wants it gone, but we're supposed to root against him because of this. Instead of giving more heroic traits to the Inhumans and/or having them acknowledge that the caste system is a bad thing, the show pins several villainous acts on Maximus; thus, Rooting for the Empire is pointless when everyone is terrible. All those weaknesses together make up for the nadir of what was already a huge Audience-Alienating Era for the comic book franchise, which only sank the property into irrelevance. Long story short, Inhumans was cancelled after one season, the Inhumans were devalued in the comics, and series also marked the beginning of the end for Marvel Television and its contributions to the MCU. The Blockbuster Buster tears it down in a 2 parter.