Marvel Studios Kevin Feige recently announced that the “Inhumans Movie” will be taken out of the Phase 3 MCU films. This is due to some complications mainly the return of Spider-Man to the MCU. Spider-Man was well-received in “Captain America: Civil War” with Tom Holland earning praises from Robert Downey Jr. Spider-Man could end up being a major player in the MCU as he has been around in comics since the 1960s. But what about the Inhumans? They’ve been around since the sixties too and way back in the forties if you count Jack Kirby’s reference to their home city in Captain America comics in 1941. But unlike Spider-Man, they’ve mostly been relegated to supporting roles within the Marvel Universe.
That non-mainstream supporting role may have been one of the factors why the Inhumans movie was pulled out of the MCU’s Phase 3. The movie was scheduled to be shown in 2019 but was officially pulled out. The Inhumans movie will focus mainly on the Inhuman Royal Family, which consists of King Black Bolt, his queen Medusa, Crystal, Karnak, Gorgon and royal pet canine Lockjaw. Despite many appearances in Fantastic Four Avengers comics, they’re relatively unknowns in mainstream media until their introduction in Agents of SHIELD. Their introduction continued appearance and popularity in the TV series, which exists in but is mostly separate from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will make them very difficult to work with.
“Since we made our initial phase three announcement, we added Spider-Man, which was a big joyous coup for us. We added Ant-Man and the Wasp, which was a big fun continuation of that story for us. Walt Disney Company has announced an Indiana Jones film for right around that same time. So I think it will shuffle off the current date that it’s on right now. How far down it shuffles, I’m not sure yet.”
–Kevin Feige, interview with Collider
So Mr. Feige basically says that there’s really not much time for Marvel Studios to shoehorn the Inhumans into Phase 3. Other players have entered the picture, especially Spider-Man. Disney itself won’t have much time to coordinate with Marvel because of, guess who? Indiana Jones. The new Marvel movie roster is now as follows:
- Captain America: Civil War – Out now (Totally awesome! A must-see! Spider-Man is great, and Aunt May is hot, and it made $700 million worldwide in one week!)
- Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016
- Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 – May 5, 2017
- Spider-Man: Homecoming– July 7, 2017
- Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017
- Black Panther – February 16, 2018 (Awesome character!)
- Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 – May 4, 2018
- Ant-Man and the Wasp – July 6, 2018
- Captain Marvel – March 8, 2019
- Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 – May 3, 2019
Not privy to the provisions of Marvel/Fox licensing, we find it amazing that the Inhumans weren’t included in Fox’s Fantastic Four Properties given their first actual appearances occurred in the pages of Fantastic Four. It could be that they weren’t popular enough for Fox to consider them unlike the Silver Surfer and Doctor Doom or that 1941 Tuk the Caveboy story reference in Captain America kept them out of Fox’s hands. In the comics, though, the Inhuman Crystal, who can control the weather is an active member of the Avengers, was married and had a normal child with Avenger Quicksilver. Black Bolt is part of the secret society of heroes called the Illuminati, and both Crystal and Medusa became temporary members of the Fantastic Four. Also, Quake, aka Daisy Johnson was first coined as a mutant yet also kept from Fox by conditions unknown or because of the ambiguous nature of her mother who could have been Inhuman as revealed in Agents of SHIELD.
In an earlier article, political complications between Marvel Studios Kevin Feige and Disney’s Ike Perlmutter could somehow keep Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson, the rest of SHIELD and the TV series’ events from being involved in the Royal Family’s affairs in the Inhumans movie, which could be a tremendous shame in the MCU. How can you have a movie about the Inhumans without the appearance of Daisy Johnson and her Secret Warriors?
It seems now the solution has presented itself. Due to the continued popularity of Agents of SHIELD and its expanded mythology on Inhumans and connection with HYDRA, the Royal Family could be made to make their appearance in future arcs of the TV franchise instead of the big screen. As mentioned, an Inhumans movie without the TV elements that introduced them would be very awkward, but totally nerdgasmic if the TV characters were included and reintroduces Phil Coulson back into the actual movie universe. So for now, if the TV characters can’t get into movies, get the supposed movie characters into TV. Heck, the Inhuman Royal family can star in big budget made-for-TV-movie AOS tie-ins if they want big stars for the roles of Black Bolt, Medusa and Crystal. They can make money with it through PPVs or hype it to death to get a ton of ads.
It seems strange that Marvel Studios can’t gamble the Inhumans the way they did with Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. The thing is, non-fans of Agents of SHIELD could confuse filmgoers if the TV/Film connection isn’t handled well. I happen to know a lot of people who don’t watch nor care for Agents of SHIELD. For the sake of the entire MCU, it’s the films that must remain cohesive even if it takes relatively unknown players out of the mix.