What To Know
- Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is questioning Marvel and Disney’s decision to cancel Wonder Man.
- The show had already been renewed for a second season before its abrupt cancellation.
- While Wonder Man is canceled, Abdul-Mateen expressed gratitude to fan.
Wonder Man may be over, but Yahya Abdul-Mateen II still has questions about why Marvel and Disney pulled the plug.
The Disney+ series had seemingly done everything right: It earned positive reviews, had great word of mouth, landed Abdul-Mateen a well-deserved Emmy nomination, and was even renewed for a second season before Disney and Marvel ultimately reversed course. Now, Abdul-Mateen is questioning what led to that decision, while calling attention to what he describes as the “obvious” optics surrounding the cancellation.
The cancellation raised eyebrows because Wonder Man had already been renewed for Season 2 before Disney announced it would scrap the series. Before the decision to cancel, Abdul-Mateen nabbed an Emmy nomination for his performance as Simon Williams, a struggling actor who secretly possesses superhuman abilities that he attempts to hide due to Hollywood restrictions preventing enhanced beings from participating in productions (a.k.a. “Doorman Clause”).
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For Abdul-Mateen, the show’s critical recognition, audience response, and the resources behind it make the decision even harder to explain.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was asked about the broader conversation over which stories Disney and Marvel are choosing to prioritize and support, including Wonder Man‘s cancellation and Mahershala Ali‘s frustrations with the long-delayed Blade.
In response, Abdul-Mateen directly challenged Disney and Marvel to take a closer look at why Wonder Man was canceled, particularly given what he calls the “obvious” racial optics surrounding the decision to cancel a critically acclaimed, Black-led Marvel series. While he stopped short of suggesting race was the reason for the cancellation, Abdul-Mateen argued that the circumstances create a narrative Disney and Marvel should want to address.
“I think the optics are obvious. If I’m a big business, if I’m Disney, if I’m Marvel, I don’t want to be attached to these optics,” said Abdul-Mateen. “So it should be a priority to change that narrative and to do what it takes to responsibly change that narrative with quality stories, with quality resources. I felt that our show did have [a] quality story, did have quality resources, did have quality actors and people, and did produce quality results that the viewers responded to positively, that the voters responded to positively.”
“So our show does deserve some study and some real, hard information about why a show like this did not continue forward, because it had all of the ingredients that one would want in a show,” Abdul-Mateen stated.
Rather than simply defending the series, Abdul-Mateen argues that Wonder Man had all the ingredients expected of a successful Marvel show and that its cancellation deserves a closer examination of why it wasn’t enough to keep it going.
Hours after the news of the show’s cancellation was announced, Abdul-Mateen responded on an Instagram post. “That’s life, right?” he wrote. “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.”
While the show is canceled, Simon and Trevor, played to perfection by Ben Kingsley, may yet show up in other projects of the MCU, with the keyword being “may.” As of the writing of this article, nothing is in the works.
Wonder Man, Season 1, Streaming Now, Disney+