Marvel’s Inhumans brought in $1.5 million over Labor Day weekend from 393 theaters in North America. It shouldn’t be considered an underwhelming performance.
I’m a Marvel fan and while I do watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I’m seriously backed up on their Netflix programming. I’ll be watching Marvel’s Inhumans during the upcoming 2017-18 television season but the fact of the matter is that I just wasn’t willing to fork over $14 or more to see it at the closest theater playing the first episodes of the season.
Because of their partnership with IMAX, the network chose to release the premiere in IMAX theaters for a two-week period before it airs September 29th on ABC as a part of their eight-episode run on Friday nights. Originally, Inhumans was supposed to be a film released by Marvel Studios but given how much the series has been dealing with Inhumans, maybe ABC thought a series would work better in the long term.
Taking in $1.5 million from under 400 theaters domestically is nothing to try about. There are indie films, I’m sure, that would want to see that amount for their weekend box office. However, it was also competing with the re-release of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind as far as the genre audience is concerned.
However, the content that is being shown during the IMAX release apparently is not going to be the same as what will be airing on television later this month on ABC. The IMAX version is only 75 minutes long while the ABC premiere will be 84 minutes long not accounting for commercials. Even if there are special scenes just for the IMAX release, the network premiere is going to be longer and that’s something fans will probably take into account before spending money.
Marvel’s Inhumans stars Anson Mount as Black Bolt, Iwan Rheon as Maximus, Serinda Swan as Medusa, Eme Ikwuakor as Gorgon, Isabelle Cornish as Crystal, Ken Leung as Karnak, Ellen Woglom as an undisclosed character, Sonya Balmores as Auran and Mike Moh as Triton.
Marvel’s Inhumans is executive produced by Scott Buck, along with Marvel’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory with Buck serving as showrunner. Roel Reiné directed the first two episodes seen in IMAX this weekend. A project of both Marvel and IMAX, the series is co-produced by Marvel Television and ABC Studios.
This year alone sees the debut of more content produced by Marvel for television. Fox airs The Gifted, a series set in the X-Men universe, starting October 2nd. Hulu will stream Runaways starting November 21st. Freeform has yet to schedule New Warriors and Cloak and Dagger. Legion will be returning on FX.
Marvel’s Inhumans will have a two-hour premiere Friday, September 29, 2017, at 8 PM ET/7 PM CT on ABC.
