If you’ve been paying attention to Marvel Studios, you know it’s in the middle of a civil war that has nothing to do with Captain America and Iron Man and everything to do with the film division and the television division. In August of 2015, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige staged a coup that severed the film division from the watchful eye of Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter. Unfortunately, the Inhumans movie was collateral damage in the split. Despite his best efforts, the MCU couldn’t find room for the royal Inhumans in Phase III or IV and it was shuffled back to the TV division, headed by Jeph Loeb and under Perlmutter’s umbrella.
Now we have the first poster from the reconfigured Inhumans franchise. The Royals will be coming to Earth in IMAX and home theaters on September 1, 2017.
The release date isn’t new information. We’ve known for months. But seeing the poster really drives home how fast the turnaround is on Inhumans. The show began filming in Hawaii back in March (and is still filming as of this writing). A quick Google search will pull up several leaked photographs of the cast on set. This gives the VFX teams six months tops to create things like the Inhumans giant bulldog Lockjaw, the city of Attilan, Medusa’s hair, Black Bolt’s flying ability, and the other characteristics central to the world of the Inhuman royals. All of which have to be up to par for IMAX quality. That’s…a lot of pressure.
For comparison, Captain America: Civil War wrapped shooting in August of 2015. The film didn’t come out in theaters until April of 2016. That gave post-production eight months after principal photography wrapped to polish the movie on top of working while the cast was still on set filming. Marvel Studios can also afford to hire more people than the television division. All of which is to say, I’m nervous. Perlmutter is betting big with Inhumans, but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. quality special effects aren’t going to cut it for the big screen. The only way to do Inhumans justice would be to use the Game of Thrones model, which is similar to movie production. Season 7 of GoT began filming in September of 2016, almost a year before the season premieres on HBO.
This is not to say Inhumans will be bad. Without a trailer, there’s simply no way to know. But Marvel Television rushing the series into production feels like an odd choice. If Inhumans are to be the flag-bearers for the TV division, you’d think they’d want to take their time to get it right.