Wonder Man‘s timing couldn’t have been worse. The streaming bubble burst during its development, triggering an internal reevaluation by Marvel Studios. Even after narrowly withstanding Wall Street’s market correction, it was halted by the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes midway through the season, with no guarantee that it would resume. After all, the shock of HBO Max shelving its Batgirl movie for a tax write-off was still in the air, and pop culture was busy writing the superhero genre’s obituary after a string of box office underperformers from both Marvel and DC.
“Wonder Man was definitely a vulnerable project. We were one of the last projects in the door when there was this mandate from Disney for Marvel to crank out as much as possible,” says co-creator and showrunner Andrew Guest.
Fellow co-creator and director of episodes one and two, Destin Daniel Cretton, credits Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and the rest of the company’s brass for defending the now-aptly titled series during unprecedented times. “This show has many lives. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. It definitely would’ve gotten canceled at another studio,” adds Cretton, who’s in post on July’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
