ABC seems to have quietly cancelled Marvel’s Inhumans.
Videos by ComicBook.com
As pointed out by SpoilerTV, the show has been pulled from ABC‘s press site: Inhumans’ formal portal on the site now leads to an “error 404” page.
Despite its ties to the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe, ratings for the oft-maligned Marvel Comics adaptation continued to drop over the series’ short lifespan.
Inhumans premiered in IMAX theaters on September 1 — making it the first-ever television series to debut in the format — before making its way to ABC later that month.
The eight-episode series concluded its run in November, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Ming-Na Wen nearly let slip word of Inhumans‘ cancellation in December — leaving Marvel fans to question the future of the series, which carries an abysmal 10% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
“It didn’t perform for us at the level that we would’ve wanted,” ABC head Channing Dungey said during the Television Critics Association winter press tour earlier this month.
“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.”
The failure hasn’t soured the network on Marvel on TV: Dungey is “cautiously optimistic” about a sixth season of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Disney-owned network continues to explore Marvel shows despite having no new Marvel-based series in the works for 2018.
“We continue to be very excited with what [Marvel is] doing with S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Dungey said.
“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.”
Dungey is adamant ABC isn’t closing the door on superheroes — the TV-MA corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe does well for Marvel on Netflix, with series like Daredevil and The Punisher — but it seems Inhumans has come to an end after failing to connect with both critics and audiences.
