In the span of two days last month, Marvel announced that “Wonder Man” was canceled, despite having already been renewed for a second season, and Mahershala Ali concretely said his “Blade” movie with the studio was dead. Now, “Wonder Man” star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is calling out the “obvious” optics of canceling those two projects so close together.
Following the announcements that the projects were dead, fans online immediately began calling out Marvel for scrapping two projects led by Black stars, as well as the treatment of other Black characters in the MCU. In a new interview with Vanity Fair released Thursday morning, Abdul-Mateen was asked point blank if he thinks “there is a problem with what is and isn’t being greenlit or supported.”
“I think the optics are obvious. If I’m a big business, if I’m Disney, if I’m Marvel, I don’t want to be attached to these optics,” he replied. “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,” he continued, referring to his Emmy nomination from the series. “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.”
When news of the cancellation first came out, Abdul-Mateen posted a message to Instagram, largely taking it on the chin.
“That’s life, right? Everything will shake out,” he wrote at the time. “I wanted to say thank you to everybody who WATCHED the show, ENJOYED the show, and SHARED that they enjoyed the show in some way or other. The show worked. And that’s my favorite thing about it.”
You can stream “Wonder Man” now on Disney+.
