As Wonder Man fans are left reeling in confusion over the show’s shock cancellation, Andrew Guest has some answers.
On Saturday night, the co-creator and showrunner shared a video intended to “clear up” some of the speculation around Marvel‘s decision to un-renew the Disney+ series for a second season.
“I just wanna say, I’ve been listening,” he prefaced. “I appreciate you all, how you all feel, and I just want to clear up what I can here.”
Guest continued, “This is not a marketing stunt. There is no movie in the works. And Destin’s schedule—no one’s schedule was an issue. Yahya [Abdul-Mateen II], Destin [Daniel Cretton], Sir Ben [Kingsley] 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, writers room was supposed to start this month, 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,” explained Guest. “And that’s essentially all I really know. Numbers aren’t really shared with me.”
Based on the Marvel comics character Simon Williams/Wonder Man, Guest co-created the series that debuted in January with Cretton, whose latest MCU directorial outing Spider-Man: Brand New Day premiered Friday, a day after Wonder Man was canceled. Earlier this month, Abdul-Mateen earned an Emmy nomination for his lead performance as Wonder Man.
Guest noted that he “had written the first episode of Season 2, and we had an outline for where the season would go, and everyone felt really good about it. It was gonna be a really incredible season that hopefully surpassed Season 1,” he added.
“I appreciate everybody getting out there and letting your voices be heard about how you feel about this, and I think there’s important conversations being had online about the kind of stories that we’re prioritizing and the kind of shows platforms wanna make,” Guest told his followers. “I hope people are listening, and I also hope that Emmy voters are thinking about Yahya and how much he deserves the Emmy for the incredible work he did on the show.”
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in ‘Wonder Man’
Marvel Studios
After Marvel initially renewed the series for Season 2 in March, the studio walked back that decision and canceled the series this week.
Wonder Man follows aspiring actor Simon Williams (Abdul-Mateen), who is struggling to get his career off the ground. During a chance meeting with Trevor Slattery (Kingsley), an actor whose biggest roles may be well behind him, Simon learns that legendary director Von Kovak (Zlatko Buric) is remaking the superhero film Wonder Man. These two actors at opposite ends of their careers doggedly pursue life-changing roles in this film as audiences get a peek behind the curtain of the entertainment industry, per the official description.
Season 1 launched with all eight episodes on January 27, bringing in 618M minutes viewed in its opening week, per Nielsen. That put it at No. 8 among streaming originals for the week of Jan. 26-Feb. 1, though the title appeared to skew older with 41% of viewing concentrated in the 35-49 age range — more than any other Top 10 title that week.
