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'Inhumans' show heads to ABC, IMAX: Where do Marvel programs stand?

A TV show based on the Marvel Inhumans characters will debut on ABC next fall. Marvel already had programs on both ABC and Netflix. Is the studio as successful in the world of television as it is in film?

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Gary Cameron/Reuters
An audience watches 'The Dream is Alive' at the IMAX Theater at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington on April 4, 2012. The first two episodes of the upcoming ABC series 'Inhumans' will premiere in IMAX.

More superheroes hailing from the world of Marvel are coming to TV, as the company continues with programs on ABC (though one has been canceled) and with shows on Netflix.

ABC's upcoming "The Inhumans" is the latest superhero show to hit the small screen. Various comic book stories have followed the royal family that rules over the Inhumans, a mutant strain of people with extraordinary abilities, including Black Bolt, a superhero who has powers that involve his voice, and Medusa, of "Fantastic Four" fame. The Inhumans reside on the Atlantic island of Attilan.

A movie about the Inhumans characters was originally set to be released by Marvel in the summer of 2019, but it was later taken off the schedule. 

However, the Inhumans characters will still be coming to movie theaters – the initial two episodes of this "Inhumans" TV series will reportedly be screened in IMAX theaters during this summer. 

Meanwhile, the TV show "The Inhumans" will debut next fall. 

It will join the Marvel TV show "Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." on ABC. The network was also formerly the home of the Marvel TV program "Agent Carter," which aired for two seasons before ending this past spring. 

Marvel continues to dominate at the movie theater box office, with this past summer’s release, "Captain America: Civil War," currently ranking as the second-highest-grossing film of the year domestically. How is the entertainment company doing in the realm of TV?

A TV show being canceled, as with “Carter," is of course not great. And in addition, ABC had played with the idea of a spin-off of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." titled "Marvel’s Most Wanted," but this past spring, the network decided against moving forward with "Wanted."

And "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." aired its lowest-ever-rated episode in October, according to the website TVLine. 

According to critics, though, recent plotlines on "S.H.I.E.L.D." have been promising. Collider writer Evan Valentine wrote of a recent installment, "This episode has left me more excited for the future of this season than the show ever has. [The episode] managed to blend in nearly all the crazy aspects of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and produce a quality episode that stands shoulder to shoulder with their best. Introducing Ghost Rider and the more supernatural side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was clearly the change that this show needed." 

And the Netflix side of things seems positive, though the public has less data on this. Netflix doesn’t release much information about ratings for their TV shows, so we don’t have information from the company to compare, say, Netflix’s "Jessica Jones" to "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."

However, all three Marvel shows on Netflix – "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones," and “Luke Cage" – have all been fairly well-received by critics, with "Jones" being particularly acclaimed. And we may have one unintended indication of the popularity of one of the programs: when "Luke Cage" premiered on Sept. 30, Netflix crashed. 

Moviefone writer Katie Roberts attributed the problem to viewers checking out "Cage," writing that the show was "apparently so popular that it temporarily crashed [Netflix]."

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