In an unusual move for the generally bulletproof studio, Marvel has pulled the developing The Inhumans from its Phase Three release schedule. The comicbook superhero team have been teased for some time in the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series and were originally slated to make their big screen debut on July 12, 2019. Now their movie future is in limbo, although Marvel Studios overlord Kevin Feige is confident that it'll happen "one day".
What's happened? It seems to be simply a case of shuffling chess pieces around the board, made more complicated by the arrival of new players. In recent months, two unexpected extra films have been added to the Marvel slate in the forms of major coup Spider-Man: Homecoming and impromptu sequel Ant-Man And The Wasp. With those as immediate new priorities, The Inhumans has slipped down the schedule to an unspecified slot even further in the future. Feig also told Collider that the release date of the fifth Indiana Jones film - July 19, 2019 - was a factor in the decision.
Described as “the most uncanny heroes of all”, The Inhumans were created when the alien Kree (Ronan The Accuser’s race from Guardians Of The Galaxy) discovered that sentient life on nearby Earth had genetic potential invested in it by the alien Celestials. Intrigued, the Kree began to experiment on Earth's then-primitive homo sapiens by splicing Eternals DNA into Cro-Magnons. The result was a team that has, as is standard for Marvel, a shifting line-up, but once included characters such as Black Bolt, Medusa, Karnak, Gorgon, Triton, Crystal, Maximus the Mad, and the canine Lockjaw. While they were forged as an army, they rejected those plans and decided their own fate. To go into the entire history would take pages, so for further details, check out Empire's guide.
"It'll definitely happen; I think it's a great story, with a great family of characters," Feige told The New York Daily News. "When that is, in Phase Three or in Phase Four, I'm not sure yet."
Marvel's next cinematic salvo is, of course, Captain America: Civil War, which is out this week.