The Inhumans Movie was not received well at the cinema making Worldwide: $2,852,282 in just one week. Yes, it was scheduled for two weeks but too many seats were empty so they cancelled the second week. The
critical reception of the movie was a whopping 8% on Rotten Tomatoes; Critics Consensus: Marvel’s Inhumans sets a new low standard for the MCU with an unimaginative narrative, dull design work, weak characters, and disengaging soapy melodrama. The series on TV is also in trouble and we don’t know if it will survive in that media, so what went wrong with the cinematic presentation of the Inhumans.
To answer that we must go back before the acquisition of Marvel by Disney on December 31st of 2009. On January 1, 2005 after helping the Marvel survive
bankruptcy back in June of 1998, Ike Perlmutter co-owner, with Avi Arad, of Toy Biz became the Chief Executive Officer of Marvel Comics and Marvel Entertainment. He retained control after Disney bought Marvel and answered only to the Walt Disney Corporation. Perlmutter has actively been involved in the development of Marvel Comics and Entertainment for over 19 years.
In 2001 Marvel attempted to develop a program called the Mutant X television series. Fox filed a lawsuit and won against this because of the likeness to the X-Men which Marvel sold the cinematic rights to Fox back in the 90’s when they were in
financial trouble. The Fantastic Four was sold also to Fox. It seems that Perlmutter never forgot this and a war between Fox and Marvel over the rights in the movies and TV spilled over to the comics and toys. Perlmutter, when he became CEO of Marvel with the blessing of Disney ended the wide production of toys and games involving the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. He instructed all Marvel creative teams to scale down their story arcs of the X-Men and Fantastic Four to take away from any success Fox may have with the X-Men and FF on the big and small screen. As a replacement for the X-Men, Marvel has been trying really hard to make the vaguely similar property the Inhumans happen, to vary degrees of success.
The new direction for Marvel included an increase in storylines involving the Inhumans. In comics and TV Inhuman stories they would be emphasized as the new persecuted DNA made super persons as an effort to take the X-Men place in Marvel Universe not owned by Fox. It did not work as Perlmutter hoped. X-Men titles
continued to be popular and Fantastic Four sold well in the Hickman story till the FF were eliminated as a team after the Secret Wars series. In the mean time the Marvel Movies under Kevin Feige are the most popular superhero movies in the cinema. In summer 2008, Kevin Feige produced the first fully developed and financed films from the new Marvel Studios including the blockbusters Iron Man, directed by Jon Favreau, and The Incredible Hulk, directed by Louis Leterrier. And the rest is movie history in a series of movies that made over 9 billion dollars.
In 2013, Fox and Marvel openly feuded over the character Quicksilver, both studios announced that he would appear in then-upcoming films X-Men: Days of Future Past and Avengers: Age of Ultron. In 2014, Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter ramped up his war with Fox. He disallowed any merchandise or licensed products that featured either X-Men or Fantastic Four. He forced the
announcement of an Inhuman movie. On October 28, 2014 in a Marvel live event, Kevin Feige had a Questions & Answers session where the release date of the film was announced. Feige still had to clear his ideas with Perlmutter and company the go between to Disney.
In 2015 Kevin Feige began a late Summer campaign against Perlmutter when he freed Marvel Studios from the control of the Marvel Creative Committee, an elite cabal of Marvel Entertainment businessmen, talent, and Brian Bendis who meticulously controlled the Marvel Universe up until that point. Disney felt the studio head, Kevin Feige, should report directly to the Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, Alan Horn, so all cinematic properties of Disney, including Pixar and Lucasfilm, were under one management structure.
Feige followed up by canceling Ike’s beloved Inhumans movie, officially kicking off the Marvel Civil War. Perlmutter eventually announced an Inhumans TV show, which aired its first two episodes in Imax movie theaters. Jeph Loeb, who oversees Marvel Television and the television properties of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who still reports to Perlmutter put Scott Buck as as showrunner and executive producer for the Inhuman project. In July 2017, it was announced that Buck was removed from his position as showrunner and executive producer on the TV series Iron Fist notably called the worst
critically acclaimed of the Netflex Marvel super-heroes. Many are saying that Buck
operated on a shoe string budget and tight time frame to successfully produce a quality TV program and movie with the Inhumans. With that the result speaks for itself. Some say the Inhumans movie should never have been released in IMAX and was very poor quality in the theater.
The fact that Feige abandoned the Inhuman movie shows me it was forced both creatively and in production. The story is not bad in what I watched and the acting is good. It is an interesting take on the Inhumans. Will it survive as a program on ABC that remains to be seen. Perhaps it can crossover with the agents of SHIELD and it will have more staying power. The fact remains as a Marvel product is is not up to what people expect from Marvel. I hope this helps you see what went wrong with the Inhumans movie. Stay tuned for More. 🙂 Walt
Great article Walt. It would be cool if you could list some of sources. I think it has to be said that this feud with Fox is the worst. It has not benefited the fans at all and Fox seems to be the only one who has benefited from it. I hope Disney recognizes the lame duck they have in Perlmutter and move to remove him and find someone who can deal with Fox rather than fight with them. It seems they have that in Kevin Feige, with the Character trading that went on last year it seems he should be in charge of all the Cinematic Universe big screen and small and perhaps with the poor showing of the Inhumans that might come to pass. If I were a conspiracy guy it may have been why Disney let it come out in the first place. Perhaps they are tired of Perlmutter and perhaps this will take him down hopefully it does not take down Jeff Loeb with him.