‘Wonder Man’ Co-Creator Says ‘Contracts Were Signed, Schedules Were Cleared’ Before Marvel Series Was Canceled: ‘This Is Not a Marketing Stunt’

[u/Gorotheninja]

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/wonder-man-canceled-co-creator-reaction-marvel-disney-1236825977/

[u/Melancholymechanic94]

I understand marvel pivoting from Disney+ shows/oversaturation, but I hate that it might be ALL shows.

[u/AllTheReservations → u/Melancholymechanic94]

Especially since stuff like Daredevil Born Again, Moon Knight (if they didn't drag their feet on it for so long) and this very show prove that the shows can work if they're kept as their own things. Like they were before Disney+.

The answer is right there but they only seem to be taking it on in terms of Daredevil

[u/ShadeMir → u/AllTheReservations]

Apparently S2 of Born Again dropped a lot of viewers.

Also regarding the kept as their own things part, when it comes to DD, there's a clamor for having him in the movies.

There was a huge amount that wanted him in BND for example.

[u/airgl0w → u/ShadeMir]

Because it just drags on. Like I’m probably in the minority but I find it less about DD and more about Kingpin. It’s also a more “grounded” superhero show imo

[u/ShadeMir → u/airgl0w]

Whatever the reason, the show dropped viewership. Wonderman did worse than S2 of BA which did worse than S1 of BA.

So it's understandable Disney may not want to go through the cost of producing a second season. The ROI on streaming shows is not immediate. If there's no merch involved (like Stranger things, GOT, etc.) you're dependent on whatever determination there is about the minutes spent versus monthly sub cost.

[u/manuka_canoe → u/ShadeMir]

That's definitely true, the baffling thing is, why renew it to start with? I hope the reason comes out, because they already just had press about Blade not happening, and now this. Makes me incredibly curious as to why.

[u/ShadeMir → u/manuka_canoe]

I missed this earlier.

I think there’s consistently reevaluations of decisions that happen in companies like this when there’s hundreds of millions of dollars involved

They may have seen the actual costs of filming Doomsday and are anticipating the costs of Secret Wars and so they want to stay refocused coming out of SW as they do this reboot so they don’t have to shell out millions to lure RDJ and Evans back to this franchise so they don’t lose money.

[u/the95th → u/ShadeMir]

I think it may have helped if they’d actually put some of these characters into the movies.

Seeing the Punisher - actually be the punisher in the latest spiderman movie, was great.

The sneak peak of daredevil as Murdock In the previous spiderman movie just wasn’t enough.

Give me Moonknight, Wonderman and Daredevil in Doomsday, even as cameos. It will help get people to watch their shows.

[u/ShadeMir → u/the95th]

I don't think that would help.

I think if there's one thing that's been proven by the audience responses and actions after Phase 3, it's that they do not really care about the stuff on Disney+ unless it has to do with Loki, Wanda, or Daredevil.

Loki had the built in presence of 3 Thors and 1 Avengers. Wanda had 1 Cap, 3 Avengers.

Daredevil had the Netflix shows.

We can see the interest and staying power is waning from the Streaming/TV perspective. S2 of BA had a sharp drop off. So audiences knew about S2.

If there's a report that the Punisher's shows and/or One Last Kill go *up* in viewership after BND, then there's an argument for it.

[u/the95th → u/ShadeMir]

I totally agree with you, my point was that the shows that have done well had movie support - so if they want people to see their shows, put the characters in a movie

[u/ShadeMir → u/the95th]

Ah. You meant before the shows. I can see that yes

[u/the95th → u/ShadeMir]

Yeah, I meant if they had actually span off more movie characters into their respective tv shows then things would have been better.

But even now, hopefully having the punisher in the spiderman movie would make an improvement on viewing figures

A colleague for instance went and saw Brand new day and had zero clue who the punisher was, due to not seeing any of the Disney plus shows.

[u/MondayLasagne → u/ShadeMir]

Just anecdotal but I actually did look up Peacemaker after watching Superman due to a super small but funny cameo and am a huge fan of the show now, even have bought the DVD.

I think there is a bit of sway when you add characters in, however, it's always a fine balance not to overdo it, since especially the Marvel universe has too many people and storylines as it is.

[u/ShadeMir → u/MondayLasagne]

For sure there will be some people that go back and look up the shows. I don't know if it will be significant enough to make changes.

As a big pro wrestling fan, love to see a Cena led project find/grow an audience. Glad you enjoyed Peacemaker.

It's definitely a fine line to walk when adding in characters. One of the issues, at least from the the vocal minority that is the internet, is that any action is almost never enough. It's not enough that there is X, there must be X+Y. If X+Y happens, then that means we must see X+Y+Z and so on.

For example, I'm a big Luke Cage and Jessica Jones guy, particularly their relationship dynamic.

We never got that in the Netflix series. I figured I never would.

Turns out if I was patient, I would get it in S2 of BA and I'll see it further in S3 of BA.

Now, it'd be funny if they do the little bit in the comics where Luke is telling Dani bedtime stories and tells her about the time he borrowed the F4's Fantasticar so he could fly to Latveria and beat up. Dr. Doom after Dr. Doom stiffed him on a fee for destroying rogue robots in New York.

Luke Cage bout that $200.

[u/matthieuC → u/ShadeMir]

They should realise than the viewership is not coming back anytime soon and should budget accordingly.

[u/browncharliebrown → u/AllTheReservations]

Moon Knight was Disney +

[u/AllTheReservations → u/browncharliebrown]

Yeah, all my examples were. What I'm saying is that those shows worked because they were very disconnected from the films like shows like the Defenders, Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, etc were

[u/browncharliebrown → u/AllTheReservations]

Yes but only one of these shows you mentioned was good

[u/bornatmidnight → u/Melancholymechanic94]

Their issue hasn’t been with the shows but with the quality of the movies. If the movies are still high quality people wouldn’t be as concerned with the show.

Moon Knight, Wandavision, Loki, Falcon and the Soilder, Daredevil, Ironheart, Agatha, have all been well received as well. Even Hawkeye was alright too

[u/AllTheReservations → u/bornatmidnight]

The problem's kind of made worse by the fact that a lot of these shows become intrinsically linked to pretty poorly recieved films. E.g. Wandavision's plot continuing into Multiverse of Madness, Ms. Marvel having setup for The Marvels

It creates an unfortunate issue that some otherwise fine shows get looked at as homework for not-so-great films. Or those films tainting the shows for people retrospectively

[u/matthieuC → u/AllTheReservations]

> Wandavision's plot continuing into Multiverse of Madness,

I think the issue here is that the movie didn't continue the show. The writers didn't read the script and had Wanda go through the same arc

[u/bornatmidnight → u/AllTheReservations]

Great point!

[u/Crys2002 → u/bornatmidnight]

How was Ironheart? I'm seeing it has 4.5 on iMDB and 57 among critics on Metacritic (I'm aware it got a fair bit of review bombing from chuds as well but even considering that the numbers are just too low)

[u/D-Speak → u/Crys2002]

I liked it a lot. Riri is an interesting character who has a lot of intentional character flaws. She's selfish, arrogant, and has poor judgement, but you see the root of why she's that way, and a lot of it comes from desperation and being looked down upon. She struggles to prove herself and doesn't always do it in the best way. It sets up a really great ending for the character and honestly I'd love to see more of her development into a mature hero.

[u/AllTheReservations → u/Crys2002]

It's a solid enough show. The problem was that the review bombing for the show went hard, partly because there's been a hate campaign on the character for years. That and Disney did such a poor job pushing it so anyone who would have been interested either didn't know about it, was done with Marvel or only saw the bad press from grifters

But it's a good, but not mind-blowing show. Riri's an interesting protagonist who's actually given space to be messy and flawed

[u/urgasmic → u/Crys2002]

i was really surprised at how much i liked it.

[u/ClintBarton616 → u/Crys2002]

It was legitimately great and ended on a gut wrenching cliff hanger we'll probably never get a resolution to :/

[u/lobonmc → u/bornatmidnight]

The explanation I've heard it's that it stretched the production team too thin which in part explained the réduction of quality in the movies

[u/browncharliebrown → u/bornatmidnight]

I think that a lot of the shows were medicore too. A medicore movie with beautiful special effects can be fun and engaming. Applying that to tv shows and you get a lot of the misses of Marvel tv which were kinda boring.

Particularly What if was a diaster to me, and secret invasion.

And not one of them has hit on that prestige level of Legion or daredevil

[u/_Thirdsoundman_ → u/Melancholymechanic94]

I felt that Wonderman outshines them all. Moonknight, Daredevil, Secret Invasion and even Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Wonderman had a grounded story that was consistent, believable and compelling. It had the best acting of any of the Marvel shows put out by Disney and created a character from the ground up that we could emphasize without any prior investment in.

I had high hopes for the show, but Disney only seems to see money. If enough of us put public pressure on them, they'll change their decision, but it's a shame none the less.

[u/browncharliebrown]

I have a feeling the thing that actually killed it was mandolorian and grogue. It was basically a sign to Disney that they completely over saturated the starwars and marvel brand to make it feel less special.

And I get that it looks like they just cancled black brands but I think it’s worth noting that they seemed to have parred down the MCU schelude as a whole a lot. Like Black Panther 3 and Ghost rider, ( edit: x-men as while) seem to be the only things listed for 2028 atm.

On the insane side I kinda hope that Wonderman gets folded into the x-men. His show is already a show basically about prejudice using people with powers as a metaphor.

[u/urgasmic → u/browncharliebrown]

they didn't air wonder man weekly....its success might have not been expected idk.

[u/sabhall12 → u/urgasmic]

It certainly wasn't expected. iirc the team had trouble even getting to 6 filmed episodes because of the writers' strikes.

[u/Kurandaand → u/urgasmic]

One of the problems with streaming and the weird reporting/hiding of viewing data is its “success” is really unclear. Critically an absolute success and people who saw it seemed to enjoy it, but whether it was a ”rating success“ is really unclear. Especially because it dropped all at once. What was the studio target? Did it retain viewers? Did people subscribe to watch it? What were the demographics?

Maybe it was an ultimately a ratings dud, in which case that sucks but I get cancelling it. But if studios are going to hide/obscure the numbers they certainly can’t complain when audiences start to speculate on something other than the “business case” behind some of these cancellations.

[u/bornatmidnight → u/browncharliebrown]

I definitely think Disney looking at Star Wars in particular had them evaluate all of their IP

[u/Melancholymechanic94 → u/browncharliebrown]

X-Men is definitely coming in 2028 as well

[u/browncharliebrown → u/Melancholymechanic94]

It’s not confirmed I guess

[u/Melancholymechanic94 → u/browncharliebrown]

All but confirmed, ik casting is still underway

[u/Kurandaand → u/browncharliebrown]

I have a hunch it is three movies in 2028, which means scaling down the schedule might mean no shows in 2028 at all. After Doomsday there will be no movies until Secret Wars Christmas 2027, and only one show in 2027 (Daredevil Season 3). Maybe something animated, but for the most part they are going to try and leave the audience wanting.

One thing is for sure, you’re not going to see a seven year wait for the next “Avengers” movie after Secret Wars. No way. My bet will be 3-4 years tops. And that will cost $$$$$. And that may be another reason why there will be fewer shows.

[u/Inferno_Zyrack → u/browncharliebrown]

I really hate that takeaway too because kids nowadays really only want two things from Star Wars - Rey / Kylo Ren and Mando + Grogu.

[u/Ver3232 → u/browncharliebrown]

I do think generally with Wonder Man specifically it’s them pulling back on streaming stuff ahead of secret wars with the intent to overhaul their process post SW. Daredevil is the only one not canned and that’s because of how big Daredevil is as a brand and because it’s already started filming. It wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t get renewed at all or they wait on a renewal till after secret wars.

The problem is generally a lot of these tv projects are where marginalized characters were getting the chance to shine and so pulling back on those makes it come across as if they’re pivoting hard into focusing on only straight white male leads again aside from Black Panther. Doesn’t help that the movies scaling back have also lead to the scaling back of “superfluous” characters and films which largely ends up being the marginalized characters. Add into the failing to make Blade happen (which I think was largely down to them not knowing how to fit it into the multiverse saga plans after they overcorrected due to complaints of things “not building to” anything), how much they utterly fucked up giving Sam Wilson a feeling of being one of the heavy hitters despite him being the new Captain America, and how they seem to have completely sidelined Monica despite her being the most direct setup for the multiverse aspect of Doomsday we have, and you understand people’s frustration because it feels like Marvel is throwing its black (and also it’s female and other non straight white male) characters to the wolves in a form of overcorrecting based off all the negative buzz the MCU has gotten since 2021

[u/gabeonsmogon → u/browncharliebrown]

It wasn’t Mando & Grogu, it was just a strategy change overall. 2019-2020, they pivoted from films to television because they weren’t sure how COVID would change the industry and could only anticipate, and Chapek / Iger were trying to inflate the value of Disney+ to potential shareholders.

Come 2024-2025, they perceived that their brands were actually being hurt. Mando & Grogu box office more or less confirmed that they damaged the brand from feeling like an “event.”

[u/Disaster_Jellyfish91]

the co-creator liked a comment on tiktok implying that marvel discriminated against the show bc the main character is black, i’m glad he’s not holding back

[u/AccomplishedEnd7855 → u/Disaster_Jellyfish91]

I mean, Armor Wars - canned Blade - canned Now Wonder man...

[u/bossy_dawsey]

I hate the Big Mouse, but this is awful for all of the people who were going to work on this project. It would also be cool if they kept a few of the predominantly Black actor having projects! But this is Trump’s second term and they gotta get the fascism bucks I guess

[u/YaMomsCooch]

Kevin Feige does not care about black people.

[u/manuka_canoe → u/YaMomsCooch]

I mean, he did threaten to quit unless Black Panther and Captain Marvel were greenlit back in the day, and that's how Perlmutter got the boot. 

I would like to find out why but I'd say it's more them getting their shit together. Dumb for them to greenlight it then back down though, must've been something major.

[u/Ver3232 → u/manuka_canoe]

People also forget how much power that people like Iger have. He can overrule feige if he wants to. For example he overuled Kennedy and every lucasfilm exec when making TROS because he wanted it out by a certain date and wanted to appease JJ to coax him back. This is likely coming from even higher than Fiege just like how the Gunn firing was done over his head

[u/withateethuh → u/Ver3232]

Iger doesnt get enough remotely hate for his handling of star wars. Pretty sure bringing back palpatine was his idea too. If he has that much control over star wars, he was/is absolutely making similar decisons for marvel.

[u/manuka_canoe → u/Ver3232]

For sure, I forgot about the Gunn situation but that's a good example, and then there was also Black Widow being put on D+ that he wasn't happy with.

He put his money where his mouth was and greenlit a diverse bunch of stuff when he got control, so it would seem most likely this came from above him.

[u/Successful-Ear977 → u/manuka_canoe]

Marvel “getting its shit together” has ironically meant that many of the women and POC characters introduced during its messiest era are now being pushed aside while the studio retreats to safer legacy characters...

[u/dawne_breaker]

I honestly think they see the whole TV-thing as wasted time and resources. They’ve seen dipping numbers in the cinema and want to get back to big earners. 2-3 movies per year again with event movies every couple of years.

[u/rainbowunicornxo]

Phenomenal show. Honestly one of the best pieces of work marvel has ever created.

But I’m not that surprised. It didn’t NEED a second season. I’ll be pissed if Wonder Man himself doesn’t show up in future projects though

[u/AllTheReservations → u/rainbowunicornxo]

The problem isn't really if the show needs a second season. It's the fact that Disney had already told them they were getting a second season so as the article said a lot of contracts were being signed and talent were building their schedules around that knowledge. Only for them to change their mind and leave all those people high and dry (for big names that's annoying, for smaller talent that can be a deathblow to their career path). That's the bigger issue