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Wonder Man Yahya Abdul-Mateen II opens up about Disney cancelling the show - and how Marvel can "change the narrative"

The man behind Simon Williams is philosophical about Wonder Man's cancellation, but he knows what some fans are thinking, too

A still of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Wonder Man on Disney+ — Image credit: Marvel Studios

News by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Thu Aug 20 2026

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Weeks after the news that Disney had decided not to move forward with a second season of Wonder Man after Marvel Television had announced it would be happening, the series star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has opened up about his feelings about the cancellation — and how it could fit into a larger narrative surrounding Marvel projects.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Abdul-Mateen said that the surprise end of the show was “a lesson in life,” adding, “You have just this guy, Simon, who finally had his dreams come true, but we saw him overcome after all of his attempts of getting close and then not closing the deal. Many people have that experience in real life. The cancellation of the show was just another one of those examples.”

He continued by saying that he had been told that the reasons for the cancellation “had something to do with the viewership numbers. I wasn’t told what those numbers were, but ultimately, for whatever reason it was, I think they decided that it didn’t make sense for business, and that’s the decision that we live with and we keep on marching forward.” (This matches earlier reports about the reasons behind Disney's decision.)

The first season of the show was a critical success for Marvel, heralding a revival of the company’s fortunes this year, which has continued with the massive box office success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day — a Sony Pictures release — and significant fan buzz not only for December’s Avengers: Doomsday but the 2028 release of X-Men, the core cast of which has just been announced.

Wonder Man’s cancellation by Disney followed confirmation that the long-in-development Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali would not be moving forward. Additionally, Armor Wars — an Iron Man spinoff centering around Don Cheadle’s War Machine character — was confirmed by a Marvel producer to no longer be “on the front burner” as the company worked to improve overall quality, and no follow-up to the Disney+ series Ironheart has been announced despite the show ending with a clear cliffhanger. Collectively, these events have led some fans to speculate that Marvel is failing to support projects with Black leads.

“I think the optics are obvious,” Abdul-Mateen said about a potential pattern implied by the above developments. “If I’m a big business, if I’m Disney, if I’m Marvel, I don’t want to be attached to these optics. 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 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.”

It’s worth pointing out that Marvel Studios has announced and dated a third Black Panther movie from Ryan Coogler, with David Jonsson as the new T’Challa behind the mask. That movie will be released in December 15, 2028.

Wonder Man Season 1 is streaming on Disney+.

Here's the Hollywood tell-all behind the MCU's newest hero, Wonder Man.

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.