The Rebooted "Keep Hope Alive" (that the rights can revert back to Marvel) Thread - - - Part 12

[Willie Lumpkin]

Something has to happen on the TV side. Inhumans is inexcusably bad. I kind of doubt Feige has time to do it all, but they need to match the Netflix quality on the Network side if they want to turn that into anything. And they should want to do more on the network side. Inhumans should have been a ground-breaking game-changer and somebody completely dropped the ball.

 

[UltimatePyro9]

Something has to happen on the TV side. Inhumans is inexcusably bad. I kind of doubt Feige has time to do it all, but they need to match the Netflix quality on the Network side if they want to turn that into anything. And they should want to do more on the network side. Inhumans should have been a ground-breaking game-changer and somebody completely dropped the ball.

Take your pick. There's Scott Buck, the showrunner who's also responsible for the lackluster Iron Fist. Jeph Loeb, the Head of Television in Marvel Entertainment. Ike Perlmutter, the CEO of Marvel Entertainment who pushed the Inhumans to an astonishingly degree.

 

[galmorzu]

I just feel there’s some obvious animosity between Feige and Perlmutter. And if there was someone else in charge of the TV side of things that got along with Feige, there would definitely be more of a push to cross-promote their stuff more. Right now references between the two branches tend to feel very forced and almost coded, like they can’t outright say things referencing the movies.

I really think that has more to do with bad blood than not being able to do more between the two. If they thought they could help their properties by tossing in some more stuff they totally would.

 

[random_havoc]

I just feel there’s some obvious animosity between Feige and Perlmutter. And if there was someone else in charge of the TV side of things that got along with Feige, there would definitely be more of a push to cross-promote their stuff more. Right now references between the two branches tend to feel very forced and almost coded, like they can’t outright say things referencing the movies.

I really think that has more to do with bad blood than not being able to do more between the two. If they thought they could help their properties by tossing in some more stuff they totally would.

I completely agree

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Take your pick. There's Scott Buck, the showrunner who's also responsible for the lackluster Iron Fist. Jeph Loeb, the Head of Television in Marvel Entertainment. Ike Perlmutter, the CEO of Marvel Entertainment who pushed the Inhumans to an astonishingly degree.

After hearing how bad Iron Fist was, it exceeded my low expectations, and I thought it was at least watchable, but I'm sure Buck is a large part of the problem.

While Inhumans has a lot of problems I didn't see with Iron Fist, they both share the flaw of having heroes who aren't very heroic . . . or interesting. . . or likable. And when you're making shows about superheroes, they should be all three of those things.

But if Buck is the primary problem, who allowed him to do Inhumans after he failed at Iron Fist? And other people were writing and directing, so there are problems above and below Buck.

And while some people like Agents of Shield and Agent Carter, I don't think either of those are nearly good enough to wear the Marvel logo. I think some serious, extensive house-cleaning needs to happen on the Network TV side.

 

[Web-Head]

After hearing how bad Iron Fist was, it exceeded my low expectations, and I thought it was at least watchable, but I'm sure Buck is a large part of the problem.

While Inhumans has a lot of problems I didn't see with Iron Fist, they both share the flaw of having heroes who aren't very heroic . . . or interesting. . . or likable. And when you're making shows about superheroes, they should be all three of those things.

But if Buck is the primary problem, who allowed him to do Inhumans after he failed at Iron Fist? And other people were writing and directing, so there are problems above and below Buck.

And while some people like Agents of Shield and Agent Carter, I don't think either of those are nearly good enough to wear the Marvel logo. I think some serious, extensive house-cleaning needs to happen on the Network TV side.

They handed him Inhumans before Iron Fist came out.

Last season of Shield was better than Luke Cage and Iron Fist, if I'm honest. It was really good

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

They handed him Inhumans before Iron Fist came out.

I didn't realize that, but there had to have been plenty of red flags throughout production that should have had them hit the brakes.

I can't imagine how anyone could read the scripts for the first few episodes and say: "This sounds like a good idea."

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Pretty good article about the upcoming potential comic-book revival of the FF:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/10...antastic-four-is-coming-back-to-marvel-comics

 

[Zarex]

They handed him Inhumans before Iron Fist came out.

Last season of Shield was better than Luke Cage and Iron Fist, if I'm honest. It was really good

Agreed, Season 4 was definitely better than the Netflix offerings. And I would include The Defenders in that comparison as well.

Though Marvel TV has definitely had its high points - I would put Daredevil Season 1 above either of the MCU movies released in 2015 - the consistency that we've seen in the MCU films isn't there. While that is to be expected to some extent, it would make a lot of sense for Loeb and company to reduce season lengths and the # of shows in production at one time in order to keep the quality as high as possible.

What is most frustrating about the TV is the schism between Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Studios puts a number of characters that would be great on the big screen off limits. I'd hate to see the Inhumans kept in limbo because of the awful show. When AOS was first announced I hoped that popular TV characters could "graduate" to film as we've seen with Star Trek and ST:TNG, but it doesn't appear like this is possible under current management.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Agreed, Season 4 was definitely better than the Netflix offerings. And I would include The Defenders in that comparison as well.

Though Marvel TV has definitely had its high points - I would put Daredevil Season 1 above either of the MCU movies released in 2015 - the consistency that we've seen in the MCU films isn't there. While that is to be expected to some extent, it would make a lot of sense for Loeb and company to reduce season lengths and the # of shows in production at one time in order to keep the quality as high as possible.

What is most frustrating about the TV is the schism between Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Studios puts a number of characters that would be great on the big screen off limits. I'd hate to see the Inhumans kept in limbo because of the awful show. When AOS was first announced I hoped that popular TV characters could "graduate" to film as we've seen with Star Trek and ST:TNG, but it doesn't appear like this is possible under current management.

I think they could use the characters from AOS or any of the Netflix shows (with the arguable exception of Iron Fist) in a film without much problem, but they've created a problem with Inhumans.

For example, if Luke Cage showed up in the next Ant-Man, I think he would fit right in and could add to the story (the AOS characters might be a little more out of place, but if there was a reason for an MCU character to interact with a Shield agent, they could have a brief part).

And in a way, we already have had crossovers in reverse since Coulson, Agent Carter, Lady Sif (and maybe others I'm forgetting) have all appeared in films and then on TV.

But their complete screw-up with Inhumans has thrown them of. Not only would the weak characters seem out of place in the MCU, but they certainly don't match their comic-book counter-parts.

Inhumans could have and should have - with enough money and talent - formed a bridge between the films and TV shows in terms of quality, scope etc., but they really blew it.

With roughly 6 hours of screen time, I had imagined at one point that they could have made Inhumans like a long film. Talented writers and directors and a budget of something like $50 million (which wouldn't be crazy as a TV budget for a high quality show and could be made back with ad revenue, Imax sales and home video if it was as good as it should have been), could have taken advantage of the seeming trend away from movies and more toward binge watching of quality TV shows while having quality that could rival (or at least come close to the MCU).

Such a wasted opportunity.

 

[Web-Head]

I'd rather they recast or whatever if they brought the Inhumans, Luke Cage, etc to the films.

A Luke Cage MCU movie or just him as a supporting character is the one Defender I think would fit best

 

[Zarex]

Inhumans could have and should have - with enough money and talent - formed a bridge between the films and TV shows in terms of quality, scope etc., but they really blew it.

I'm pretty certain that a Star Wars TV show is a given for the launch of Disney's streaming service in 2019. But what if they held off on Inhumans and made that a carrot to get folks to buy the service as well? And sell it as an extended length MCU movie exclusive to Disney Streaming.

Give it a Game of Thrones (or at least a Star Trek Discovery budget) put Feige or one of his direct reports in charge and actually tie into what is happening in the cinematic MCU. Instead of wasting the franchise's potential, show the full power of the Royal Family on your TV with a big budget and without network restrictions. The current series is a damn shame, and hopefully the required changes will be made to make sure this doesn't happen again.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

I'm pretty certain that a Star Wars TV show is a given for the launch of Disney's streaming service in 2019. But what if they held off on Inhumans and made that a carrot to get folks to buy the service as well? And sell it as an extended length MCU movie exclusive to Disney Streaming.

Give it a Game of Thrones (or at least a Star Trek Discovery budget) put Feige or one of his direct reports in charge and actually tie into what is happening in the cinematic MCU. Instead of wasting the franchise's potential, show the full power of the Royal Family on your TV with a big budget and without network restrictions. The current series is a damn shame, and hopefully the required changes will be made to make sure this doesn't happen again.

It will be very interesting to see what Disney does do, and Game of Thrones quality certainly should have been the goal for Inhumans, but is it necessary to have a subscription service to get that level of quality?

That's something I was thinking about prior to Inhumans. If Netflix or HBO offer high quality shows, that certainly helps them get and retain viewers, but, while network TV seems to have been left in the dust, in theory, they should have a stronger position to offer quality "must-see" programming and get paid for it.

I mean think of it, did Westworld, for example, add much to HBO's bottom line? I can't imagine a bunch of people signed on just because they heard a new show was coming. It probably helped HBO keep a lot of viewers they have because people are getting hooked and they don't want to not be able to see the next season.

But on a Network, the revenue can be directly linked to the popularity of the show. If Inhumans had been a great show and everybody was talking about it at work and had to see it, ABC could have charged a million dollars per minute of advertising. (plus in the case of Inhumans, if they had done better, they could have actually made money on the IMAX release for this and future seasons plus home video, merchandising etc.)

So, while it has languished in recent years, I don't see any reason that network TV can't rival subscription services for quality (if you want a lot of nudity etc. there are still limits on networks, but Inhumans doesn't need any of that).

But all the 'what if's and 'what could be's became moot when we saw how bad Inhumans really was.

 

[Zarex]

ABC may have been thinking that the core Marvel fanbase will watch it anyway, so why invest big bucks on will likely be, given our experience with AOS and Agent Carter, a niche program?

Disney has to open big with the streaming service given that they are giving up hundreds of millions of dollars annually by moving their movies from Netflix. A movie quality Marvel show that can't be seen anywhere else could get lots of signing up, so they may be more likely to invest significant dollars in it. It's similar to how CBS is using Discovery to increase subscriber levels for CBS All Access.

 

[ADollarADay]

I'm pretty certain that a Star Wars TV show is a given for the launch of Disney's streaming service in 2019. But what if they held off on Inhumans and made that a carrot to get folks to buy the service as well? And sell it as an extended length MCU movie exclusive to Disney Streaming.

Give it a Game of Thrones (or at least a Star Trek Discovery budget) put Feige or one of his direct reports in charge and actually tie into what is happening in the cinematic MCU. Instead of wasting the franchise's potential, show the full power of the Royal Family on your TV with a big budget and without network restrictions. The current series is a damn shame, and hopefully the required changes will be made to make sure this doesn't happen again.

That is what I was going to say, almost verbatim.

Inhumans has potential to be uber popular, GoT, TWD popular and they choose to rush it and pick Scott Buck as the showrunner. You can create any character with any power you want as well. The best new thing in this inhumans season is Mortis, even though the way they introduced and developed him sucks.

Smart thinking would have been to maybe announce it in 2016 like they did, coming in 2019 and then announce that it was coming exclusively for the Disney Streaming app, with maybe the first couple of episodes in IMAX. The budget should have been a true 10-12MM per episode and with a competent screenwriter and director. That, along with a brand new, first ever Star Wars TV show would get literally millions of subscribers in the US (at least for the Marvel/Disney piece as I think they'll do tiers for that app).

The best course of action now is to make this season non cannon and relaunch it in 2021-22 or so after we have forgotten about this one.

 

[ludovica]

There is a property which would make us sign up, just show me a 4 and I'm there day one, sight unseen.

 

[UltimatePyro9]

Yeah, the Inhumans series was obviously rushed after being dropped from the Phase 3 film slate. Its amazing how bad this show is. The only characters I liked were Lockjaw (how can you not like a giant teleporting dog?) and Maximus. Seriously. Sure he wants to usurp the throne from his brother, but that's mainly because of the unjust caste system of the royal family. In any other show, he would be seen as heroic.

I think any Marvel fan would want this show rebooted as well.

 

[NealKenneth]

The Inhumans as a property could ever match the popularity or quality of something like Game of Thrones. The Royal Family are simple, one-trick characters, after fifty years there have yet to be any great stories with them as the main characters, and their lore is somehow both paper-thin and overly complex.

A lot of people have it backyards. They think the Inhumans are a property that Marvel cheated out of glory by letting Scott Buck touch it. The reality is that Scott Buck provided the exact level of quality they have always had. I mean, come on people! A major character's power is total control of her hair. The main character can't even talk. If you go dramatic (which they tried), the audience is just going to laugh at you (which they did.) But if you go comedic, they will just see it as a rip-off of Guardians. How do you win in that situation?

The only thing that would be different if Marvel had raised the budget for this show is that they would have made even less money from it than they are now.

 

[ludovica]

A lot of people have it backyards.

I don't even have a backyard.

What you are saying once applied to GOTG also; who among us sees potential in Inhumans will still believe it despite the TV series shortcomings.
No way to prove anything definitely either way.

 

[2kt09]

The Inhumans as a property could ever match the popularity or quality of something like Game of Thrones. The Royal Family are simple, one-trick characters, after fifty years there have yet to be any great stories with them as the main characters, and their lore is somehow both paper-thin and overly complex.

A lot of people have it backyards. They think the Inhumans are a property that Marvel cheated out of glory by letting Scott Buck touch it. The reality is that Scott Buck provided the exact level of quality they have always had. I mean, come on people! A major character's power is total control of her hair. The main character can't even talk. If you go dramatic (which they tried), the audience is just going to laugh at you (which they did.) But if you go comedic, they will just see it as a rip-off of Guardians. How do you win in that situation?

The only thing that would be different if Marvel had raised the budget for this show is that they would have made even less money from it than they are now.

Plain and simply, should've gotten someone like Bryan Fuller or Noah Hawley.

 

[NealKenneth]

I don't even have a backyard.

What you are saying once applied to GOTG also; who among us sees potential in Inhumans will still believe it despite the TV series shortcomings.
No way to prove anything definitely either way.

oh jeez and that's not even my worst typo in that post :3

I think that you are right: you can't prove anything and also you could have said a lot of this about Guardians when it came out as well (although they did have at least a fairly popular comic series in the mid-2000s, the Inhumans never have had even that.) But with the similarly ludicrous character designs used in both properties, and coming from the same studio/universe...whichever came second was inevitably going to be in the shadow of whichever came first.

It's easy to imagine an alternate reality where James Gunn made The Inhumans in 2014 and Scott Buck handled a TV miniseries for Guardians in 2017. I argue the results would have been about the same...although the character designs and premise for Guardians are both stronger too.

 

[2kt09]

oh jeez and that's not even my worst typo in that post :3

I think that you are right: you can't prove anything and also you could have said a lot of this about Guardians when it came out as well (although they did have at least a fairly popular comic series in the mid-2000s, the Inhumans never have had even that.) But with the similarly ludicrous character designs used in both properties, and coming from the same studio/universe...whichever came second was inevitably going to be in the shadow of whichever came first.

Are the two really that similar tonally and content-wise?

 

[ludovica]

Plain and simply, should've gotten someone like Bryan Fuller or Noah Hawley.

If only...
Good call.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

The Inhumans as a property could ever match the popularity or quality of something like Game of Thrones. The Royal Family are simple, one-trick characters, after fifty years there have yet to be any great stories with them as the main characters, and their lore is somehow both paper-thin and overly complex.

A lot of people have it backyards. They think the Inhumans are a property that Marvel cheated out of glory by letting Scott Buck touch it. The reality is that Scott Buck provided the exact level of quality they have always had. I mean, come on people! A major character's power is total control of her hair. The main character can't even talk. If you go dramatic (which they tried), the audience is just going to laugh at you (which they did.) But if you go comedic, they will just see it as a rip-off of Guardians. How do you win in that situation?

The only thing that would be different if Marvel had raised the budget for this show is that they would have made even less money from it than they are now.

There's plenty of raw material there. They don't have to be pinned to stories that have already been told.

Black Bolt's inability to talk isolates him. He's a majestic, regal, incredibly powerfull and tragic character all at once. The story shouldn't be about Maximus equalizing the caste system. The story should be about Maximus arguing that the Inhumans should use their power to take over the earth instead of living in isolation on the moon and Black Bolt standing up to that.

There's absolutely no reason a talented story-teller couldn't create a great show with those characters and situations.

I could do it, but nobody wrote me a check.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

If somebody asked me, I would have created a three season trilogy.

The first season would have introduced the characters. We would have seen the royal family as children and adults. I would have shown a number of short-stories that would show the interrelationships and heroism of the main characters in small stories. By the end of the first season, the audience should know and like the main characters and know and dislike Maximus.

In the second season, the stress of the lack of resources on the moon would start to build. Maximus would advocate for the Inhumans taking over the earth and he would have a lot of support. We, the audience would see Black Bolt's heroism in standing up to him, but many of the Attilan people (partly because of Black Bolt's inability to fully express himself and also because of their own selfishness) would side with Maximus.

The third season would be all out war between the factions.

After that three season trilogy, I would create a new trilogy for seasons 4-6 that would likely bring the Inhumans in contact with the Humans as Black Bolt attempts (and fails) to peacefully integrate with the humans. Ideally, I would use other Marvel Superheroes to initially fight and later befriend the Inhumans.