‘Inhumans’ Showrunner on Whether Marvel’s Movie Plans Affected the Series

Marvel’s The Inhumans gets its television debut on ABC tomorrow night, and as fans tune in they may find themselves wondering what about the series that was supposed to be a feature-length movie, if anything, was sacrificed to bring it to television.

However, according to showrunner Scott Buck, the Inhumans you get on the small screen is exactly the Inhumans he wanted to make. In an interview with Collider, Buck explained he was given total freedom in approaching Marvel’s moon-based race.

“[No,] I think we had complete freedom to approach this show in the way that we wanted to do it,” Buck said. “Jeph [Loeb] already had a good grasp on exactly what this show should be, and we had a great deal of time talking about it, so that I could learn exactly what his vision was and follow through on that.”

Fans might remember that Inhumans was originally conceived as an installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Three. Plans for the movie were announced in October 2014 giving the film a tentative release date of November 2, 2018. In 2016, however, the film was taken off Marvel’s release schedule with the plans for Inhumans to join Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — which had already begun introducing the general concept of the Inhumans species — was announced, though at the time Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige said the idea of an Inhumans movie wasn’t dead. It was simply being pushed off.

This shift of the project from the big to small screens prompted questions as to how the show would handle the complex visuals and effects required to bring Inhumans — of which many have unique physical powers — to life. Specifically, fans were deeply concerned about how Medusa’s prehensile hair would look and it turns out that those effects were a concern for Buck as well.

“Any of the big special effects,” he said. “Medusa’s hair is extremely difficult, expensive and time-consuming to do. Lockjaw is a tremendous special effect.”

But, in the end and despite various negative responses early looks at the show received from fans, Buck is confident in how the effects turned out and how the will continue to develop, calling the project “a work in progress.”

“We have the best people in the business, all over the world, working on the show, and it’s a work in progress,” Buck said.

Marvel’s The Inhumans will air on ABC beginning Friday, September 29.