Updated

Updated · RadioTimes · Aug 2

Andrew Guest Slams Disney, Marvel for Reversing Wonder Man Season 2 3 Months After Renewal

Updated

Updated · RadioTimes · Aug 2

Andrew Guest Slams Disney, Marvel for Reversing Wonder Man Season 2 3 Months After Renewal

Q: What hidden metric forced Marvel to abandon a renewed, Emmy-nominated series right before its writers' room opened?

There is no confirmed “hidden metric” on the record. What the available evidence suggests is that Disney and Marvel likely killed *Wonder Man* over an internal streaming-performance calculation: the show reviewed well and earned an Emmy nomination, but it appears not to have delivered the sustained audience or long-term business value the companies wanted. Andrew Guest said the reversal came from inside Disney and Marvel and was not caused by scheduling conflicts, a fake marketing play, or a shift to a movie. He said contracts were signed, calendars were cleared, and the writers’ room was about to open, which makes the decision look like a top-level business reassessment rather than a production problem. The clearest data point is viewership. *Wonder Man* posted about 618 million viewing minutes in its premiere week and briefly reached No. 8 on Nielsen’s originals chart, but then quickly fell out of the top 10. Disney also did not release its own viewership figures, which often suggests the numbers were not strong enough to tout publicly. In the streaming business, that kind of drop-off can matter more than reviews, awards attention, or fan enthusiasm. So the most plausible answer is that Marvel’s internal metric was some combination of completion rate, subscriber impact, retention, and cost-versus-engagement. In short, *Wonder Man* seems to have been renewed on optimism and then abandoned when the underlying audience economics no longer “made sense” to Disney and Marvel.

3 articles · Updated · RadioTimes · Aug 2

Guest said Disney and Marvel abruptly killed Wonder Man season 2 after publicly renewing it in March, even though contracts were signed and production had been set to restart this month.
In a TikTok video, he rejected rumors that the reversal was a marketing stunt, movie setup or scheduling problem, saying the decision was made internally because the show no longer "made sense" to the companies.
Early 2027 filming had been planned, and Guest said Destin Daniel Cretton, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley all wanted to continue the series.
The cancellation hit a show that debuted in January to strong reviews and earned Abdul-Mateen II an Emmy nomination, sharpening fan backlash over Marvel's shifting priorities.
Guest said the uproar has opened broader debate about which stories Disney-backed platforms choose to keep making, amid wider criticism over stalled or sidelined MCU projects led by Black characters.