Wonder Man is a critically acclaimed Marvel series that’s been renewed for season 2, but it began as “a joke pitch.”
The series follows actor Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), as he attempts to conceal his superpowers and land his Hollywood dream role, along with the unexpected friendship he forms with fellow actor Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley). With a 91% score from critics and an 87% score from audiences, Wonder Man’s reviews have been excellent, with it being widely hailed as a refreshing break from franchise and superhero fatigue.
During a Deadline Contenders TV panel, Wonder Man creator and executive producer Destin Daniel Cretton revealed that the Trevor Slattery side of the story began as a joke discussed while filming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Producer Jonathan Schwartz took the joke to the next level by collaborating with the art department to create a poster of a Trevor Slattery Hollywood spinoff. This was then combined with the in-development Wonder Man series, and the two series ideas subsequently merged to eventually become the show released on Disney+. Check out Cretton’s comments below:
The genesis of the idea actually sprouted when we were on the set of Shang-Chi and I just loved working with Sir Ben [Kingsley, as Trevor Slattery] and I really loved his character and I really feel like in every movie Trevor Slattery has been such a standout and underutilized. So I did a joke pitch to my producer, Jonathan Schwartz, and said, “We should do Trevor Goes To Hollywood.”
The joke pitch kind of escalated because [Schwartz], as a joke, made a poster with our art department of Trevor Goes to Hollywood with Trevor Slattery in a convertible and it looked 1980s. And I thought we have to do this show! So that’s how it began.
Then when we were really pitching the show we found out that Wonder Man was also being developed around what would a show be like in the MC Hollywood. Those two ideas collided and that’s when Andrew [Guest, EP] came in and helped us create the real vibe of the show.
Wonder Man was developed and greenlit at a time when Disney+ was still pushing a high volume of new Marvel shows, including several minor or lesser-known characters getting their own spinoffs. This helped Trevor get a shared spinoff series after previously being a controversial fake-out villain in Iron Man 3 and returning with a comedic supporting role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Marvel has since scaled back on the number of new shows that they release on Disney+. Between this strategic change, Wonder Man being a highly atypical superhero show, and the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes in 2023, the series was in temporary danger of being canceled. Creator and executive producer Andrew Guest explains that, “This was a risk creatively for Marvel and I think it was one they reexamined during the strike. It’s been this underground project that the people at Marvel believed in.”
What began as a joke is now one of Marvel’s best-received series, and it is only the third live-action MCU show to get more than one season on Disney+. The only other ones to achieve this feat are Loki, which was designed to be a two-season series, and Daredevil: Born Again, which is in the midst of releasing season 2 episodes and filming season 3. Both shows had the advantage of being centered on already massively popular characters, though, and Daredevil: Born Again also had multiple seasons of the Netflix series that preceded it.
Trevor was an established character, but not a prominent or particularly popular one, which made Wonder Man far more of an unknown quantity. Between the highly positive reception and strong viewership, the initial joke and the creative vision that followed have paid off. Simon and Trevor’s unlikely friendship and adventures in Hollywood will officially continue beyond Wonder Man season 1’s ending, presumably with Agent Cleary (Arian Moayed) and the Department of Damage Control continuing to be part of the story as well.
Due to the changes in Marvel’s approach to television, it is less likely for anything like Wonder Man, let alone a pitch that begins as a joke, to become a full-fledged series in the near future. This makes the show even more unique, especially as it continues to expand its unconventional story in season 2.
Release Date
2026 – 2026-00-00
Network
Disney+
Directors
James Ponsoldt, Stella Meghie
