Marvel Studios’ “Wonder Man” Disney+ Series Rumored To Be Cancelled
When the actors went on strike back in July, one of the many shows impacted included the new Marvel Studios’ Disney+ series, “Wonder Man”, which follows a new character, Simons Williams, who in the comics is a scion of a wealthy industrialist, his company losing out to Tony Stark’s Stark Industries. Williams goes to work for the villain Baron Zemo, who gives him ionic talents, that being extreme strength. Wonder Man ultimately switches to being a hero and teams up with the Avengers.
The upcoming Disney+ series is going to star Yahya Adbul-Mateen II as the title character in the series, along with Ben Kingsley, who will also be returning as Trevor Slattery, and it will also star Lauren Glazier and Demetrius Grosse. The new series is being created by “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” director Destin Daniel Cretton, with Andrew Guest working as the Head Writer.
However, officially, Disney has never announced this series is being released, and this could ultimately prove to be an issue for the show. This is because Marvel Studios is going through some major changes, as it tries to repair the damage caused by taking its eyes off the ball and dropping the quality of its films and shows, as it simply created too many. Superhero fatigue has hit viewers; with fewer people checking out the latest Disney+ shows and box office numbers down, Marvel Studios is having to make some drastic changes. There is also financial pressure on the division, which has been spending too much money creating shows and films that haven’t been hits.
Following the resolution of the writer’s strike, it was revealed that Marvel Studios had put a stop to the production of the upcoming “Daredevil: Born Again” series, removing the writers and directors, in order to restart the series in a new direction with a new creative team, that will now include traditional showrunners, though they will apparently be trying to reuse some of the footage they’ve already shot.
During a recent episode of the The Watch podcast, according to “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios “, author Joanna Robinson, who has previously worked at Vanity Fair, revealed that:
“Even after we heard about [the] ‘Daredevil’ [situation], I’ve also heard again, that they are trashing the ‘Wonder Man’ project like there is a lot of stuff that is going to go in the can.”
With the actor’s strike continuing on into the winter, this time will have given Marvel Studios time to redevelop its strategy, and if this report is true, take a look at what’s already been filmed and may have potentially decided it wasn’t worth investing any more in the project.
Disney has been going on a major cost-cutting exercise this year, trimming thousands of jobs, cutting budgets, removing unpopular content from streaming services, and even selling some original shows to other networks, as they look to create a more curated lineup of programming, which includes cutting back on the amount of Marvel projects being released each year. Another project, “Vision Quest”, has also reportedly been cancelled.
Marvel Studios already has several series in the can, including “Ironheart”, “Echo”, and”Agatha: Darkhold Diaries”, so it has enough shows for a year or so, which would allow it time to reevaluate its plans for future Disney+ series, which are reportedly going to be much more focused on creating shows that last for multiple seasons, and likely cheaper to create.
With Marvel also focusing on getting its theatrical slate sorted first after the actor’s strike is resolved, we might not know about the future of “Wonder Man” for a while.
No doubt, while the reports of the cancellation of “Wonder Man” will be disappointing for fans of the character, this doesn’t mean that the character might not turn up in another show or film at a later date, or possibly, just delayed until a later date, since there is always the possibility that the studio could revive “Wonder Man” project in the future.
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