Premiere Date Confirmed for “Marvel’s Inhumans” IMAX Turn
By Ani Bundel
The long strange road for “Marvel’s Inhumans” finally has an official premiere date on the calendar, as IMAX announces it will hit theaters September 1st.
Marvel’s road to their Cinematic Universe began with one of the biggest Catch-22s of all time. In order to rescue itself from bankruptcy, and put themselves on the path that would ultimately lead to creating the MCU, they had to sell their most valuable asset–the X-Men–to 20th Century FOX. This means, that while they are creating the largest in universe franchise ever conceived here and now in the middle of the second decade of the 21st century, they are unable to integrate those characters.
In 2014, when Phase III was first announced, Marvel seemed to have given up completely on ever getting the X-Men back into the fold, and announced instead they would make a movie featuring a semi-knock off version of the same idea, The Inhumans. (Unlike X-Men, Inhumans are not born with their mutations, but instead experience them when exposed to Terrigen crystals, but their end resulting powers are fairly similar.) Scheduled for 2018, at the tail end of Phase III, these characters were then introduced slowly to fans via the MCU TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the multiplex. First, 20th Century FOX began showing serious diminishing returns with their PG rated version of the X-Men franchise, an unsurprising result of having to have a movie in production every 18 months in order not to lose their rights. Then Sony, who owned the rights to Spiderman in much the same manner, gave up the ghost and agreed to return Spidey to the MCU for a standalone movie and a cut of the profits, allowing the MCU to bring into the fold their other most popular character that had eluded them.
Agents of SHIELD Season 3 Episode 21. Daisy Johnson as Quake
Suddenly the Inhumans movie disappeared from the Phase III schedule altogether, only to be re-announced as a TV show–the better to bury, in case the MCU managed to crack the same sort of deal down the line with FOX. But with ABC seeing falling ratings with MCU TV shows canceling Agent Carter and killing Marvel’s Most Wanted before it got off the ground, the question became: was this a replacement for SHIELD? With only eight episode, it seems more likely to be a companion “event TV” type deal.
We don’t know the answer to that yet, but we do know that for the first time since SHIELD the MCU is going to go whole hog in promoting this venture, including a premiere in IMAX theaters, which, it was announced this weekend would be September 1st, 2017. Only about a year ahead of the original Inhumans release date.
Check out the cast, which is *stacked.*
"Anson Mount as Black BoltIwan Rheon as Maximus the MadSerinda Swan as Queen MedusaKen Leung as KarnakIsabelle Cornish as CrystalEme Ikwuakor as GorgonMike Moh as TritonSonya Balmores as Auran"
Will The Inhumans turn out to be a show worth movie theater ticket prices? if it does well enough, could Phase IV hold a spin off movie? After all, with the success of R-rated Marvel films Deadpool and now Logan, it seems that any chance to make a deal with FOX has retreated again for the time being…
Next: Marvel Adds Ken Leung to the Inhumans Family
The Inhumans will debut in IMAX theaters September 1st, 2017, ahead of their fall TV season debut on September 26th, on ABC.