It’s the wonder hit that few saw coming, and a rare second chance is in order. After defying expectations with a critically acclaimed first season, Marvel Television’s Wonder Man has been renewed for a second season, with the cast and creative team all set to return.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) and Ben Kingsley (Schindler’s List) will reprise their respective roles as super-powered actor Simon Williams and former terrorist thespian Trevor Slattery, while co-creators Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and Andrew Guest (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) are coming back as a director-executive producer and showrunner-executive producer pair.
No other details were shared, including a release date, but the open-ended finish presents an opportunity to steer the show into different, potentially interesting directions. Instead of sticking to the tried-and-tested Marvel formula, the series subverted expectations by zeroing in on the relationship between Williams and Slattery, while serving as a meta commentary on superhero fatigue.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the renewal announcement is a big deal, with only two other Marvel live-action shows having landed second-season orders: 2021’s Loki, which remains Marvel’s most-watched title, and Daredevil: Born Again, scheduled to premiere on Disney+ tomorrow. In its first week of release, Wonder Man collected 681 million minutes of watch time in the US (per Nielsen) and ranked among the company’s top 10 original streaming series.
In the meantime, all eyes will be on Cretton’s next major project, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The highly anticipated sequel swings into theatres on 31 July, with its trailer racking up 718.6 million views in 24 hours, marking the biggest launch in history — not just on the film and TV side of things, but across all areas of entertainment, toppling the 457 million views of last year’s Grand Theft Auto VI trailer from Rockstar Games.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Yonk
