July 12, 2019 is the day that Marvel's Inhumans movie was supposed to be released, so why was the MCU film cancelled? Inhumans was part of Kevin Feige's epic MCU Phase 3 announcement back in October 2014, and was originally scheduled for release on November 2, 2018.
Those plans changed, however, when Marvel pressed ahead with plans for Spider-Man: Homecoming and then Ant-Man 2, both of which led to a number of schedule changes. Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel were among other films to have their dates shuffled around, with Inhumans initially landing on July 12, 2019, which just so happens to be today. That would've made it the final movie of Phase 3, coming directly after Avengers: Endgame (then titled Avengers: Infinity War Part 2). Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. then started introducing Inhumans, building towards their big-screen debut, so all seemed to be moving forward as planned.
In April 2016, however, Disney pulled Inhumans from its upcoming release schedule, and although a few months later Feige was still saying it could happen as a movie in Phase 4, it was eventually announced that Inhumans was heading to ABC as an eight-episode TV series. So, what went wrong?
Part of the reasoning comes from Marvel announcing their plans so far in advance, when of course things are going to change over time depending on how fans respond to certain things, as well as elements such as rights issues (i.e. Spider-Man coming back to Marvel). Despite most announced movies being released, the MCU Phase 3 slate still changed a lot. But Inhumans is also indicative of a larger power struggle behind the scenes at Marvel between Feige and Ike Perlmutter. Back in 2015, Marvel Studios moved from being under the banner of Marvel Entertainment to operating directly under The Walt Disney Studios. This meant that Feige answered straight to Disney chairman Alan Horn, rather than Marvel Entertainment CEO Perlmutter, with whom he reportedly clashed.
It wasn't long after that the rumors of Inhumans being cancelled started to emerge, before it was eventually dropped from its schedule, only to reappear later as a TV series. This strongly suggests that Feige himself wasn't actually committed to the idea, and that it was likely Perlmutter who was pushing for it to happen. With Marvel Studios no longer at the behest of Marvel Entertainment, then it was free to drop the Inhumans movie, allowing Marvel Television to pick it up to series instead.
Things didn't work out well for Inhumans on TV. The show was resoundingly panned by critics, who savaged everything from its wooden performances to its stale writing and boring design work. It didn't perform much better with audiences either, despite a splashy IMAX debut, and Inhumans was canceled by ABC after just one season. Because of that failure, with the series using the Inhumans Royal Family (i.e. its biggest and best characters), it's hard to imagine a movie version ever being made now.
While it would've been interesting to see what the MCU's Inhumans movie looked like, it's also difficult to say that they lost out with the cancellation. Instead of Inhumans, Spider-Man: Far From Home is currently playing in cinemas, and dropping some major MCU bombshells. The past 18-months have brought the MCU's biggest hits to date, and they have plenty of other plans to expand the cosmic branch of the MCU without needing the Inhumans.