- Wonder Man, a critically acclaimed Marvel TV show created by Destin Daniel Cretton, has been canceled after only one season.
- Despite the cancellation of Wonder Man, upcoming Marvel TV shows like VisionQuest and Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 are still set to be released, but no new Marvel TV shows have been confirmed.
- The failure of both Marvel and Star Wars TV shows on Disney+ has led to a loss of the streaming service’s original value proposition, with no new live-action Marvel or Star Wars shows currently in development.
Today, Marvel fans got some bad news: Wonder Man has been canceled after only one season. The show was critically acclaimed, earning a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Plus, the show was created by the studio’s latest golden boy, Destin Daniel Cretton. This is the man who directed Spider-Man: Brand New Day and came within a hairsbreadth of directing Avengers: Kang Dynasty before Jonathan Majors’ legal woes brought that film crashing down. The failure of Wonder Man is really quite sobering; if a beloved show created by the studio’s best new director can fail, what chance do any other series have?
Not much, as it turns out. While VisionQuest and Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 will be coming out, those shows have already been filmed. With Wonder Man’s cancellation, it’s official: there are no new Marvel TV shows that have been confirmed, and we don’t even have rumors about upcoming series. Star Wars is in a similar boat: The Ninth Jedi is coming out very soon, and Ahsoka Season 2 is right around the corner. Maul–Shadow Lord has been renewed, but we don’t know when it will actually return. As both Marvel and Star Wars TV slowly die, one thing is clear: the Disney+ experiment has been a failure.
This WAS The Way
Whenever a new streaming service gets announced, most of us roll our eyes in frustration. Once upon a time, we got all of our streaming needs from one or two platforms; now, everyone and their brother has their own service, making it harder than ever to find your favorite movies and shows. When Disney+ launched, it came with a built-in value proposition. Namely, that it would be much more than just a home for Disney’s beloved cartoons; it would also be a one-stop shop for all things Marvel and Star Wars.
Back when the streamer launched in 2019, Disney+ seemed like a real win/win for the House of Mouse. Back then, Marvel was still regularly pumping out movies that earned over a billion dollars at the box office. Now, they’d be able to get fans to pay an additional monthly subscription for a regular drip-feed of new MCU content. Meanwhile, Star Wars had begun faltering, and poor audience reception to The Last Jediled toSolo actually losing big at the box office. Disney+ came around at the perfect time to pivot this famous franchise to the small screen in an attempt to rebuild fan faith.
It’s Not Easy Making Green
Unfortunately, this blew up in Disney’s face. The failure of Star Wars speaks for itself: after the critically hated The Rise of Skywalker flopped into theaters, we got a mixed bag of shows set in a galaxy far, far away. One was outstanding: Andor, which was two seasons of perfection. Some were unambitious safety shows, like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka. Others were instant disappointments, like The Book of Boba Fett and The Acolyte. The Mandalorian was good for two seasons and then fell off. Fell so hard, in fact, that The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars film in seven years, earned less than microbudget movies like Obsession and Backrooms.
Compared to Star Wars, Marvel has had a slower fall from grace. Movie box office has been iffy since Avengers: Endgame, ushering in hushed concerns over so-called “superhero fatigue.” The TV shows have been equally middling: some are truly excellent, like WandaVision. Others are flawed-but-good, like Loki and Agatha All Along. The rest of the television output ranged from decent TV shows that nobody watched (like Hawkeye and Moon Knight) to ambitious shows that plenty of people hated (like Secret Invasion and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law). Now, Marvel is doing its best to revive its film brand with Avengers: Doomsday, hoping to bring back the audience excitement of earlier movies like Endgame. At the same time, though, its live-action shows are dying on the vine, with most lasting only one season and quietly dying.
Disney+ Has Lost Its Magic
That brings us to the present day, where no new Marvel or Star Wars live-action shows are in development. This may have been to give the various writers, producers, and directors a creative breather, but it had an unexpected side effect: Disney+ has lost its original value proposition. Sure, the merger with Hulu gives subscribers new things to watch, especially if you like weird TV shows. But what about everyone who shelled out money for new Marvel and Star Wars content? Outside of animation, these people are now paying each month so they can keep rewatching sci-fi and superhero reruns.
In retrospect, Disney+ was a mistake all the way around. It brought Star Wars to the small screen in a way that cheapened the brand so much that the franchise can no longer release a successful summer blockbuster. It also gave us new Marvel shows that, quite frankly, were mostly worse than what we got from Netflix’s earlier shows. The new MCU shows felt like homework that audiences resented, magnifying the existing problem of superhero fatigue. What happened here? Simple: execs chased bigger paydays, holding onto the cultish belief that the line must always go up. The more they did that, though, the more audience interest went down.
Disney bought Star Wars, but they failed to learn the lesson Leia tried to teach Grand Moff Tarkin: the more you tighten your grip, the more everything will slip between your fingers!
