Note: When I published my “review” of Marvel’s
Inhumans, I fully intended my next article on the movie to be a proposal
for a better way they could have done it.
However, after I finished writing that article it occurred to me that
with the projected box office for Inhumans plummeting like a rock since
Friday, Marvel, ABC, and IMAX are probably (justifiably so) concerned about the
future of Inhumans as a TV series.
So I decided to put the other article on hold in favor of this open
letter to Marvel, ABC, and IMAX.
Note 2: There will be a couple of minor spoilers for
the movie/pilot, but nothing major.
To whom it
may concern:
You’re
probably not feeling to great right now about Marvel’s Inhumans. After all, your partnership to produce an
8-episode miniseries about Marvel’s own “Game of Thrones”-like story of court
intrigue, rebellion, and romance seems like it’s going to be dead-on-arrival
(like most of the cast of Game of Thrones!). I haven’t found any specific figures for what
your budget was, but I assume it was a considerable investment for everyone
involved, especially with the level of CGI required by most of the main
characters. And now it looks like you’re
not even going to read a $2 million box office figure after your first
weekend. Ouch.
You have
every right to be disappointed by this box office figure—after all, it seems
like anything with the Marvel logo attached to it will earn more than $2
million on any given day of its theatrical run!
I assume you’re expectations for Inhumans were a little more
realistic than to expect Marvel money for this semi-movie, but you
probably hoped for a solid number, especially with the lack of competition this
weekend. You’re probably looking to find
someone to blame for this failure—if for no other reason than to give yourself
a reason to keep your job!
Now, before
you go out and do something rash like demand that Jeph Loeb and Joe Quesada
banish Scott Buck from the Marvel Sandbox™ forever, let’s take a look at just
what went wrong here. Because I don’t
think you can blame Scott Buck for everything that went wrong, and I
also don’t think that the situation is as bad as I’m sure it looks from your
office.
Let’s start
by looking at the concepts themselves:
turn a relatively-unknown Marvel property into a TV series and give the
TV series a boost by screening the first couple episodes—the “Pilot”—as a
movie. The first of these is (obviously)
good. After all, Marvel TV has been
doing a great job of taking unknowns and turning them into hits—just look at Jessica
Jones. The Gifted, Cloak
and Dagger, and Runaways all look like possible hits. The Defenders is paving the way for a
whole universe of Marvel heroes on Netflix.
Why shouldn’t the Inhumans also be a valid candidate for a TV
series? Considering the level of
publicity they have received in recent years, including several crossovers with
both the Avengers and the X-Men in the comics, and multiple arcs through the
first four seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Inhumans should be
a slam dunk—or at least work well enough to get another season!
The second
concept here—the theater screening of the double-length “Pilot” as a movie—is
also good (albeit qualified).
Considering that we were “promised” an Inhumans movie back when
Marvel Studios announced all of Phase 3, a lot of fans were really excited to
see Black Bolt, Medusa, and the rest on the big screen. Given the hype among the fanbase, you can be
excused for thinking that fans (hardcore fans, at least) would turn out for
anything with the “Marvel” logo, especially if it included the Inhumans. And approaching this “Pilot” as a movie in
filming and advertising should have ensured that more than just the hardcore
fans would turn out to see it. So what
happened?
First off, I
do not think that it was a bad idea for you to “preview” Inhumans in the
theater a month before the series premiere.
I have actually wondered on occasion if Marvel TV would ever get into
the TV-movie business—producing a feature length movie within the confines of
its various TV series. In fact, I
thought that might be a good format for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to adopt
in season 5, considering that it will air on Fridays (when people usually go
out to the theater anyways). Taking two
episodes out of your season order and producing them together, approaching them
like a movie, is a time-honored approach for season premieres and finales.
Having said
that, the concept of airing the “Pilot” in theaters is not without its
flaws. To see a movie in the theater
costs money, while watching a TV episode at home is free (aside from TV
subscription). In other words, you need
to give viewers a reason to go to the theater and pay theater prices,
either because this isn’t going to air on TV or because it is a far better
experience with theater quality.
Unfortunately, Inhumans does not do that. Because this is just the first two episodes
(and then not the complete first two episodes), many viewers will choose
to stay home and wait until they can watch it (in full) on TV for free,
especially since you are still charging IMAX prices for a movie that’s just
over half the length of a feature film!
And the visuals in the movie are nice, but I don’t think that the IMAX
technology really enhances the experience all that much.
I think that
will account for your poor box office numbers and reception, more than any
major failing in the TV series itself.
And that’s
something you need to keep in mind: the
fact that Inhumans is not working out as a movie has very little bearing
on whether it can work out as a TV series.
The actors are stiff in their parts (especially Triton), but that’s to
be expected in a pilot episode: the
actors haven’t had an opportunity to grow into their characters yet. That will probably change over the course of
the season. The special effects are not
movie quality, but with a little more work they would certainly be television
quality—especially since you’ve effectively removed most of the major
effects-budget-drains (Lockjaw, Triton, Medusa’s hair, Attilan itself). I hope that you will take advantage of this
(momentary) reprieve to work out the kinks, figure out why Attilan looks so bad
(that shouldn’t be too hard, guys!), and ensure that the effects are more
polished the next time you show them.
In other
words, the problems with this movie are not deal-breakers for this show. The actors will (hopefully) get better as the
season progresses, and assuming that you give them another season, they will do
great in season 2. As it is, a lot of
the actors are already pretty good (especially Gorgon and Karnak). And as far as the effects are concerned, who
knows? Maybe when you show this again at
the end of the month, the effects for Attilan will not look so terrible when
they’re not projected in IMAX quality!
So don’t
give up on this series just yet. And
don’t give up on the idea of starting a series out on the big screen before its
small-screen premiere. That concept can
still work.
The reason Inhumans
doesn’t work on the big screen isn’t because the Inhumans aren’t a good enough
draw (Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange weren’t that big
of properties, either), and it’s not because the series itself doesn’t
work. The reason it doesn’t work on the
big screen is because you haven’t given people a reason to see it on the
big screen. Remember: not only will this be available for free
at the end of this month (4 weeks after the theatrical release), but it will
have more footage! I understand
why you cut it down for the theater and are expanding it for TV: that gives people a reason to watch it again
on TV (thus setting them up to watch the series). Unfortunately, that’s the wrong way to look
at it. If people are going to watch the
series, they’ll watch the first 2 episodes on TV. But if people are going to watch the series
on TV, you need to give them a compelling reason to watch it in IMAX first.
Yes, the
IMAX quality was supposed to be the big “draw” for audiences to watch it in
theaters. But it just doesn’t work. As I’ve already said, using IMAX cameras and
angles isn’t enough to justify that added expense ($14 for IMAX versus $10 or
$6 for regular versus $0 for watching on TV) to see it in IMAX theaters. In the entire movie there are only about 4
scenes I remember which looked like they needed to be shown in IMAX, and two of
them were CGAttilan! That’s just plain
not enough. That’s why the theatrical
release isn’t going to work this time around.
So how can
you fix this next time around? It’s
actually pretty simple:
GIVE US A GOOD
REASON TO GO TO THE THEATER!!!!!!
The easiest
way to do this would be to treat the theatrical release as a prequel movie that
will tell its own story and set up the overarching plot for the season. And then don’t show it on TV as the
first two episodes of the series. I know
that means writing, shooting, and paying for additional screen time, but it
will be worth it. Give us something good,
something interesting, something exciting, and the box office receipts from
this prequel movie may very well pay the budget for the entire series and then
some—and let you use movie-quality special effects for the entire series!
If you
approach the movie like it’s a movie, give us movie quality, and don’t’ turn
around and show it on TV, I think people will be willing to pay movie prices to
see a movie.
Oh, and make
sure you give us something closer to movie length. $14 for 75 minutes really isn’t worth it.
I know
you’re going to be asking yourselves a lot of difficult questions over the next
few weeks before the television premiere of Inhumans. And you should be. Maybe you need to make a change to the
series’ direction. Maybe you need to
find a new showrunner (a little late for that).
Maybe any number of things need to change. But I would suggest that after you ask
yourselves these questions, you wait a few weeks before answering them. Wait until you see how the series is received
on television before making any radical changes.
Because I
think this show might be fine. Mostly.
Still a few kinks to work out, but hopefully they’ll work themselves
out.
Sincerely,
MCUReviewer
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