ABC Boss Won’t Confirm ‘Inhumans’ Cancellation

Things are looking dismal for Marvel’s Inhumans, but the show isn’t dead yet.

ABC head Channing Dungey spoke at the winter TCA press tour. She said the network was not happy with the performance of Marvel’s Inhumans. The series averaged 4.1 million viewers and a 1.2 key demographic rating.

“It didn’t perform for us at the level that we would’ve wanted,” she said. “We haven’t made any official decision yet about what we’re going to pick up in May, but I will say that the numbers, unfortunately, were less exciting for us than we hoped they would be.”

ABC’s disappointment with Inhumans hasn’t soured the network on superheroes or Marvel.

“No, not at all,” Dungey says. “We’re actually developing a reboot of The Greatest American Hero that stars an Indian-American woman from [executive producer] Nahnatchka Khan. That is something that has definitely superhero aspects to it. The question really is more: What kind of superhero show? What’s the tone? How are we doing it? But I would never say we’re closing the door on superheroes.

“We continue to be very excited with what [Marvel is] doing with SHIELD. We’ve tried a few things that haven’t worked out as well as we would’ve liked. We developed a couple things this season that we don’t think are going to end up going forward, so we’re going to look really carefully about what we do next, because the idea for us is to come up with something that works very well for both Marvel and ABC, so we’re going to continue to try there.”

As for Agents of SHIELD, Dungey is “cautiously optimistic” about the future.

“The creative this season, I honestly think, has been the strongest its ever been,” Dungey said. “We’ve been really excited about what the producers have been talking about for the second half of the season. I’m really looking forward to hearing them come in and talk about what their ideas would be for season 6, so we can make a better determination about whether we’re going to order another season or not.”