Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Wonder Man.
Photo: Disney+
There are few things less wonderful than finding out your show is canceled and you need to find a new job. And yet, Disney managed to find a way to do that to Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The second season of Wonder Man, the Marvel series starring Abdul-Mateen, was suddenly canceled after having already been renewed. The news came three weeks after the exciting development that Abdul-Mateen was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. It’s all just a sad, difficult situation that could have been totally avoidable if the show had just never been renewed in the first place. While Spider-Man: Brand New Day soars to ridiculous heights at the box office, here’s a full breakdown of the sadder side of the MCU.
Wonder Man was the most recent addition to the Marvel television universe. It introduced a world in which superheroes were banned from working in Hollywood. In the show, co-created by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest, Abdul-Mateen played Simon Williams, a superhero who secretly auditions for a remake of the movie Wonder Man without letting anyone know about his powers. The series co-starred Sir Ben Kingsley, Arian Moayed, Zlatko Burić, and X Mayo. In addition to Abdul-Mateen’s Emmy nom, the series did well ratings-wise, hitting No. 1 on Disney+ and reaching No. 8 on Nielsen’s “Originals” chart on the week of its binge release, with 618 million minutes watched. Critically, the show was generally praised but not raved over. “In Wonder Man, the mundane is structural, and that choice clarifies the series’ ambition: to tell a genuinely human-size story within a superhero milieu,” our critic Nicholas Quah wrote in his review. “After years of escalating stakes and imperiled planets, this is a welcome curveball. Unfortunately, Wonder Man is far more persuasive in the abstract than in execution.”
Two months after the show premiered, Disney confirmed that it was renewing Wonder Man for a second season. Most Marvel series (WandaVision, Agatha All Along, Hawkeye, etc.) are just one season long, so the renewal operated as an exciting endorsement. Then, on July 30, Disney revealed it had changed its mind. Variety broke the news that Wonder Man was not coming back. The company gave no official reasoning for its change of heart.
It sure was, but Abdul-Mateen was pretty chill about it. “Word just dropped that Wonder Man won’t be coming back,” he wrote on Instagram. “That’s life, right? Everything will shake out. I wanted to say thank you to everybody who WATCHED the show, ENJOYED the show, and SHARED that they enjoyed the show in some way or other. The show worked. And that’s my favorite thing about it.”
Showrunner and co-creator Andrew Guest was less laid-back. “Just want to say I’ve been listening,” Guest said on TikTok. “I appreciate you all. I feel how you all feel, and I just want to clear up when I can here. This is not a marketing stunt. There is no movie in the works, and Destin’s schedule and no one’s schedule was an issue. Yahya, Destin, Sir Ben, and I all loved making this show. All felt passionately about continuing to do it, and were eager to. Contracts were signed, schedules were cleared.” He added, “The writers’ room was supposed to start this month. The production was supposed to begin early next year, and there was a decision made internally between Disney and Marvel that this didn’t make sense for them, even though a few months ago it did. And that’s essentially all I really know.” And now, that’s all we really know. Disney? What’s up.
Okay, so Wonder Man is over. What does that mean for Wonder Man himself? He could still appear in future Marvel projects, a source confirmed to Variety. That makes sense for the MCU: It constantly interweaves its stories, and Kingsley’s character Trevor Slattery originally appeared in Iron Man 3, after all. But Guest’s comment that the cancellation “is not a marketing stunt” means it’s unlikely that Abdul-Mateen will lead a solo project for Wonder Man in the immediate future. Not too wonderful at all.
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