INHUMANS
SEASON 1

A PLANNED FILM, A TELEVISION DEAL AND AN IMAX WINDOW

HOW THE INHUMANS ENDED UP ON ABC AND IN IMAX

Marvel Studios announced an Inhumans film for its Phase Three slate in October 2014 and removed it from the schedule in April 2016. On 15 November 2016, IMAX, Marvel Television and Disney|ABC Television Group announced that the new ABC series would premiere in IMAX theatres first. The announcement described it as the first time a live-action television series had debuted that way, with the first two episodes filmed entirely with IMAX digital cameras and shown worldwide only in IMAX for two weeks before ABC’s fall launch.

IMAX was also a financing participant in a television pilot and series for the first time. Disney’s Ben Sherwood called the arrangement “a bold, innovative approach to launching great TV content.” Scott Buck, who had also run Iron Fist Season 1, was the showrunner, having moved on to this series by July 2017.

A MOON CITY AND A KING WHO CANNOT SPEAK

WHO THE INHUMANS ARE, AND HOW ANSON MOUNT PLAYED BLACK BOLT

Attilan is a cloaked city in a crater on Earth’s moon, ruled by a royal family. Black Bolt’s voice is lethal, so he communicates through gestures and Medusa speaks for him when she is there. The main cast is Anson Mount, Serinda Swan, Ken Leung, Eme Ikwuakor, Isabelle Cornish, Ellen Woglom and Iwan Rheon, and filming began in Honolulu by 5 March 2017 and ended on 12 June 2017.

Mount said in September 2017 that the challenge of leading a role in which he could not speak was his main draw, and that Black Bolt’s background ruled out American Sign Language: “I can’t use American sign language because he’s not from here.” In a set interview published on 12 July 2017, he said the show gave him a consultant and that he was building his own system of signs.

TWO EPISODES AS A THEATRICAL EVENT

WHAT HAPPENED IN IMAX, AND WHAT IMAX SAID AFTERWARD

The two episodes premiered in Los Angeles on 28 August 2017 and opened on 667 IMAX screens in 67 countries on 1 September, as a 75-minute version, against 84 minutes for the ABC broadcast. The IMAX run grossed $3.5 million worldwide. At the August 2017 critics’ tour, Loeb said the episode critics had seen was not finished, telling reporters, “the show that you have seen is not the finished product.”

IMAX chief executive Rich Gelfond said in October 2017 that audiences had misjudged what they were buying:

“Customers expected a production akin to a mega-budget blockbuster movie, rather than pilots for a television show.”

Rich Gelfond, IMAX CEO, October 2017

He added that IMAX would take “a more conservative approach” in future.

CRITICS WERE HARSH, WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS

WHAT THE REVIEWS SAID ABOUT THE FIRST EPISODES

TVLine gave the opening C and said, “Despite ‘big’ launch, little to marvel at,” finding the series small and claustrophobic. ScreenCrush called it a “royal mess,” though it praised Mount’s effort to give Black Bolt expression beyond the glowering, Swan’s Medusa and the Attilan skyline shots. ComicBook.com rated the IMAX premiere two stars out of five and called the silent Black Bolt by far the deepest and most intriguing character.

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 10% critics’ score from 48 reviews and a 42% audience score, and its consensus says the show “sets a new low standard for the MCU.” Metacritic gives the season 27 from 20 critics.

THE REWATCH

A SHORT RUN ON ABC AND A SINGLE SEASON

ABC aired the series from 29 September to 10 November 2017. The first two episodes drew 3.75 million viewers. ABC cancelled it on 11 May 2018, and entertainment president Channing Dungey said: “It didn’t perform for us at the level that we would’ve wanted.” Mount later reprised Black Bolt in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022.

In the Marvel Marathon it is catalogued as Marvel Television and sits only in the Marvel TV shows in order guide, between The Defenders and The Gifted Season 1. It is not in the MCU timeline guide or the MCU release-order and series guides.