The Inhumans standalone movie may be dead, but Marvel’s ambitious plan to bring its Inhumans characters to television is picking up steam. Barely a month after the initial announcement, a showrunner is already in place.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, former Dexter showrunner Scott Buck has signed on for the eight-episode first season of the Inhumans series. Buck is also the showrunner of the upcoming Marvel Netflix series, Iron Fist. Because Marvel TV quickly hired Buck for another show, it suggests that the company is pleased with his work on Iron Fist. What it means for the future of Iron Fist is unclear. Presumably Iron Fist has a chance to return for a second season, since Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage have already been renewed. But Buck would have to either pull double duty on both shows, find a partner to work with, or step aside from Iron Fist and let a new showrunner take over.
It’s also possible that the shortened first season of Inhumans could allow Buck to remain on both series. But considering that Inhumans is already slated to premiere this fall, it has to begin production soon. That means casting announcements may not be very far away.
Related: ABC and IMAX Reveal More Details About Marvel’s ‘Inhumans’
Inhumans is being co-produced by IMAX, which will release the first two episodes of the series into IMAX theaters two weeks before the series debuts on ABC this September. So in a sense, there will be an Inhumans movie, just not one under the Marvel Studios banner. There’s been a complicated division between Marvel Studios and Marvel TV, despite the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe between them. Marvel TV is still under the Marvel Entertainment banner, while Marvel Studios is basically run by Kevin Feige as a separate entity under Disney. The rumored in-fighting between Marvel Studios and Marvel may be why there hasn’t been more crossover between the television shows and the movies.
As for the Inhumans, Marvel has been clearly positioning them as the MCU’s mutant substitutes in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, while the films have yet to acknowledge those events. This has actually caused some X-Men fans to resent the push that the Inhumans have recently received in Marvel’s comic book universe. Whether the general public will accept the Inhumans as the stars of their own show remains to be seen.
