Marvel and ABC have a brand new superhero project in the works, and it promises to be unlike anything else on the small screen. Inhumans will follow a group of Inhumans with a variety of bizarre and fantastical powers after they were ousted from power and sent to Earth to interact with... well, the regular humans who have to get around without superpowers. Star Henry Ian Cusick spoke with CinemaBlend about what's to come in Inhumans, and he told me this about how the show will handle some of the crazier elements that come with the Inhumans:
You know the comics, right, where they have the dog? That in itself...I found it really hard to get my head around that to begin with. I was like, 'What? A dog that teleports?' So that in itself is going to require a lot of special effects, I guess. I think there's going to be quite a lot of CGI. You know we had a CGI guy on set pretty much the whole time.
One of the wilder pieces of news to come out of Inhumans production was the fact that Lockjaw, the 2,000 pound teleporting dog of Marvel comics fame, will indeed have a part to play on the new show. (He briefly appeared in the still-unreleased trailer.) The Inhumans themselves might be able to blend in on Earth without too much trouble, but a teleporting dog that weighs an actual ton is going to be difficult to accept unless he looks at least somewhat realistic. Henry Ian Cusick's comments hint that Inhumans probably isn't holding back on bringing Lockjaw around.
Of course, Lockjaw isn't the only character whose powers will require the monitoring efforts of an on-hand CGI tech, as this show likely kept him quite busy throughout the filming process. Marvel hasn't shared many details about what's to come, but we do know the major characters who will turn up, and Henry Ian Cusick himself has said that the show is largely staying true to the characters as they are in the comics.
In the source material, Black Bolt's voice can cause massive destruction, Medusa's telekinesis-maneuvered hair can be used for everything from delicate procedures to battle-ready attacks, Crystal can manipulate elements, Karnak can sense the weak points of anything and anyone, Gorgon can generate seismic waves with his hooven stomps, Triton can breathe underwater, and the traitorous Maximus can manipulate minds. That's a lot of reality to shake up. While Iwan Rheon (who is best known for his portrayal of the despicable Ramsay Bolton on Game of Thrones) probably won't require much in the way of CGI to sell his role as villain, the other characters will need some serious special effects, and it sounds like Inhumans is going to do what it takes to make the Inhumans look good.
We can bet that Black Bolt and Medusa and the rest won't be using their powers (or hanging out with Lockjaw, for that matter) all the time in every episode, so the CGI undoubtedly won't be constantly taking over the screen. But given what Marvel has been able to achieve on the small and big screens, I'm confident that the effects used to make Inhumans as crazy as we could possibly want will be fantastic. (See: Ghost Rider.)
Henry Ian Cusick is best known as an actor, and his character on Inhumans sounds quite intriguing, but he's also been working on a fresh new project in the tech industry. He is the spokesperson for the social media platform JamBios, which has been touted as the "anti-Snapchat" and will allow users to document their thoughts to keep for themselves or share with others. JamBios will be a new frontier in the social media world, and Cusick has explained just how it can be useful to TV fandoms. It may be the place to be when Inhumans premieres in the fall.
Interestingly, the first two episodes of Inhumans will actually debut in IMAX before the show kicks off on ABC on Friday nights this fall. Be sure to give JamBios a look while you wait for a look at Inhumans, and don't forget to take a gander at our summer TV premiere schedule.
