Marvel renewed Wonder Man and still couldn't save it — its TV boss can't explain why
The showrunner had already written the first episode of season 2. Fans have a theory about who pulled the plug, and why VisionQuest should be nervous.
Brad Winderbaum, head of TV and animation at Marvel Studios, was asked about Wonder Man on the Phase Hero podcast this week, and he did not defend the decision. "I fought for the show. We all did. Everyone at Marvel wanted to see it happen," he told host Brandon Davis. Then he admitted he can't fully explain it: it was "complicated", and subject to "market forces that I like barely understand".
And this was a show his own studio had already renewed. Wonder Man had Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams, Ben Kingsley back as Trevor Slattery and a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score. None of it was enough.
A renewal that renewed nothing
It took six months to get from a premiere with strong reviews to a second season nobody will make.
- 27 January 2026: all eight episodes land on Disney+. First week: No. 8 on Nielsen's streaming originals chart, with 618 million minutes viewed.
- 23 March: Disney+ confirms season 2, with Abdul-Mateen, Kingsley, co-creator Destin Daniel Cretton and showrunner Andrew Guest all returning.
- July: Abdul-Mateen is nominated for the Emmy for lead actor in a comedy series.
- 30 July: Variety reports that season 2 is off. The writers' room never opened.
Guest has since said contracts were signed, schedules cleared and the first episode of season 2 already written. He ruled out the obvious excuses too: no film in the works, no clash with Cretton's diary.
"There was a decision made internally between Disney and Marvel that this didn't make sense for them, even though a few months ago it did."
— Andrew Guest, showrunner, on TikTok
Cretton told TheWrap that if it were up to Kevin Feige, they would be making the show. By his account, then, the president of Marvel Studios wanted a second season and didn't get one either.
Everyone wanted it, so who didn't?
Add Winderbaum and the fans on r/marvelstudios have done the maths. "The head of the studio wanted it. The head of its TV branch wanted it. The showrunner wanted. The actors wanted it. There really is only guy left now," reads one reply. The most upvoted comment suggests the call came from Disney itself rather than Marvel. It's a fan reading, not a confirmed fact: Disney has never given a reason.
If a renewal can be overruled above Marvel's head, a Marvel renewal is a press release, not a promise.
The numbers don't settle it either. The Ankler reported, citing unnamed sources, that viewership didn't justify the cost. Yet Luminate data had Wonder Man as the second most-watched Disney+ original season in the US in the first half of 2026, behind only Daredevil: Born Again. The one figure that looks like a miss: 52% of viewers reached the finale, against the 53% Luminate says new Disney+ series typically need.
The only lever left
Winderbaum was honest about how little power he has. "The biggest leverage I have... is the actual viewership numbers," he said, adding that fan campaigns don't work the way #SaveDaredevil once did. On Young Avengers, still waiting for a greenlight, he was gloomier: "Sometimes you know you're sitting on something great and it takes a long time, and it hurts."
That puts every Marvel series with soft numbers on notice, and VisionQuest, which arrived on Disney+ this week with Paul Bettany back as Vision, is first in the queue. Wonder Man proved that viewers leaving before episode eight count for more than an Emmy nomination.
As for season 2, Winderbaum isn't giving up, to be fair: "Maybe I'm an idiot, but I still have hope that by some miracle, there's a way to do something down the road." When Marvel's head of television is relying on miracles, the rest of the slate had better rely on viewers.
Read more: Daredevil: Born Again 'always' had three seasons planned — Marvel once promised one every March