Hands down, the “Inhumans” TV series is the biggest failure Marvel has had since their resurgence in 2008. After almost two dozen box office successes, and a string of well-received television series, “Inhumans” is an unmitigated disaster. However, even with Marvel putting their name on the series and ABC releasing it, one of the biggest victims of this bust is none other than IMAX.
One of the reasons that “Inhumans” was such a hyped show was the partnership between Marvel TV and IMAX. For the first time, IMAX gave a production company a sizable investment to ensure that they would have the exclusive opportunity to show the first two episodes in IMAX format on theater screens across the country. This also meant that “Inhumans” would film using IMAX cameras, and supposedly, be visually stunning enough to warrant the large format.
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The hope was that Marvel would turn around and produce another home run, and IMAX would be able to reap the rewards. Unfortunately, the exact opposite happened. Marvel turned in a subpar production that was further exacerbated by the large format IMAX screens. Basically, a not-so-great TV series ended up looking more terrible on IMAX screens.
So, IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond has to come clean to investors, and discussed the debacle. In a recent investors call, he said, “We believe one of the biggest contributors to the less-than-forecasted theatrical performance was a misalignment of customer expectations. Customers expected a production akin to a mega-budget blockbuster movie, rather than pilots for a television show. Moreover, the fact that this was Marvel IP set the bar at a level you wouldn’t see from other pieces of content or IP because of the reputation and the high production value of Marvel movies.”
So, apparently the problem was that customers expected a beautifully-shot, high-quality show, and they ended up getting an ugly turd. This is definitely a weak excuse, since the marketing leading up to the release of the show on IMAX screens touted how this was a big screen experience that could only be appreciated on the IMAX format. But hey, it’s probably easier to blame a “misalignment of customer expectations.”
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What’s the final cost of the “Inhumans” experiment for IMAX? Considering they invested over $11 million of their own money to the project, and “Inhumans” only grossed $3.5 million on IMAX screens, it’s pretty sizable. No sugar-coating could hide this. Obviously, Gelfond had to present a new plan moving forward.
“Going forward, we intend to take a more conservative approach consistent with the ‘Game of Thrones’ approach to capital investments and content. We will be more conservative when considering whether to invest our own capital; and if so, to what extent,” he said.
This is akin to him saying, “Oops, my bad!” Moving forward, it’s highly unlikely they’ll devote any funds to showcasing TV shows on their screens, unless it’s “Game of Thrones,” where they just showcase a couple episodes and put zero money into the production. With nothing else on TV remotely coming close to the visual quality of “Game of Thrones,” we can pretty much call this IMAX television experiment dead. [We Got This Covered/io9]
