It’s been a handful of days since Disney reversed its season two renewal of Wonder Man, and folks have questions. Somewhat luckily, showrunner and co-creator Andrew Guest has some answers.
On Tiktok, Guest put out a video clarifying that no, this isn’t a marketing stunt, and no, the season wasn’t morphing into a movie. Likewise, it wasn’t a scheduling issueâ”contracts were signed and schedules were cleared,” he explained. “Yahya [Abdul Mateen II], Sir Ben [Kingsley], Destin [Daniel Cretton] and I all loved making this show, and we all felt passionately about continuing to do it.” He also revealed that he’d gone and written the season premiere ahead of the writers room meeting later in August, and production would’ve begun early next year.
So what happened here? According to Guest, this decision came from on high between Disney and Marvel. Continuing Wonder Man apparently “didn’t make sense for them” like it had just a few months ago, and that’s all he knows, since he’s not fully privvy to the show’s numbers. Unable to say more, all he could do was say that the writers cooked up a season two outline that he said would’ve been “really incredible,” and hopefully topped the first. The details of what would’ve been are currently under wraps, but maybe Guest or someone else will get to disclose their ideas sometime in the future.
Guest ended the video thanking fans for their reactions to the news, acknowledging the “important conversations” being had about “the kind of shows platforms want to make” right now. And in his final note, he hoped Emmy voters are using this news, however sad, to look at Mateen II’s performance and see “how much he deserves an Emmy for the incredible work he did on the show.”
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