Runaways may not be done with its first season yet, but Hulu is already giving the show another go. However, anyone holding their breath for the return of Medusa and Lockjaw on a certain other Marvel show might want to exhale a bit early before they die from asphyxiation. ABC’s president doesn’t sound confident in renewing Inhumans for another season.
Image: ABC
Hulu has announced that it’s renewing Runaways, its superhero series about a group of teens and their evil parents, as well as the time travel comedy Future Man. But over at ABC, things aren’t looking so rosy for Inhumans.
Speaking to reporters at the Television Critic’s Association winter press tour, ABC head Channing Dungey talked about the future of some of the network’s current genre shows. She said she’s “cautiously optimistic” about Agents of SHIELD (another Marvel project) and Once Upon a Time, both of which were moved to Friday nights in the US this past season, though she wouldn’t confirm that either of them are getting renewed. However, the tone went south when asked about Inhumans, the IMAX-linked series about a group of superhumans who live on the moon.
It didn’t perform for us at the level that we would have wanted. 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… 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.
That isn’t an official confirmation that Inhumans is dead in the water, but it doesn’t sound good. However, it isn’t all bad. Dungey said Inhumans‘ failure has not damaged ABC’s relationship with Marvel, especially since SHIELD is still doing well, nor has it turned the network away from making more superhero shows in the future. As an example, she hyped up ABC’s upcoming comedy reboot of The Greatest American Hero, which was announced last September and is still in development.
“That is something that has definitely superhero aspects to it,” she said. “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.”
[via Entertainment Weekly and Variety]