ABC Won’t Officially Cancel Marvel’s ‘Inhumans’ Just Yet
It’s safe to say that Marvel’s Inhumans was pretty much dead-on-arrival, but ABC may not count out Black Bolt, Medusa and the rest just yet. Network brass still haven’t decided on an official cancellation, but provide updates on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 and other Marvel projects in development.
Speaking at the ongoing TCA press tour, ABC boss Channing Dungey stopped short of officially declaring The Inhumans dead, despite abysmal reviews, a failed IMAX extension and an average of 4.1 million total viewers. “It didn’t perform for us at the level that we would’ve wanted,” she admitted to reporters (h/t Entertainment Weekly). “We haven’t made any official decision yet about what we’re going to pick up in May, but I will say that the numbers, unfortunately, were less exciting for us than we hoped they would be.”
Thankfully, prospects are brighter for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which premiered behind Inhumans in a Friday timeslot, and will reach 100 episodes over the course of its fifth order. Even as reports circulated that Marvel strong-armed ABC into a fifth season order, it seems Season 6 isn’t necessarily off the table:
The creative this season, I honestly think, has been the strongest its ever been. We’ve been really excited about what the producers have been talking about for the second half of the season. I’m really looking forward to hearing them come in and talk about what their ideas would be for Season 6, so we can make a better determination about whether we’re going to order another season or not.
ABC was also previously said to be developing a Jessica Jones-esque series among other unnamed Marvel projects, but gave no indication that Disney’s upcoming streaming service would become an exclusive home for Marvel series:
We’ve tried a few things that haven’t worked out as well as we would’ve liked. We developed a couple things this season that we don’t think are going to end up going forward, so we’re going to look really carefully about what we do next, because the idea for us is to come up with something that works very well for both Marvel and ABC, so we’re going to continue to try there.
In the meantime, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues airing on Friday nights. Stay tuned for more in the meantime.
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