Earlier this week, we learned that Marvel Studios is going back to the drawing board with Daredevil: Born Again. Essentially rebooting the series on a creative level, the show's writers and directors have been fired and only a handful of scenes shot prior to the Hollywood strikes are expected to be kept.
It's also been confirmed that Marvel Studios is completely overhauling how they approach making TV shows. Proper showrunners will now be hired to spearhead these Disney+ projects and the TV shows will no longer be produced like movies (where they're shot in their entirety and fixed in post-production).
Now, another casualty of this fresh approach may have been revealed.
Talking on The Watch podcast, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios author Joanna Robinson revealed that she's heard, "They're trashing the Wonder Man project." If correct, this is obviously shocking.
Like Daredevil: Born Again, cameras were rolling on Wonder Man before the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes brought work to a halt. Interestingly, while the trades reported on the series revolving around Simon Willians, it was never actually officially announced by Marvel Studios.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has been tapped to play Wonder Man, with Sir Ben Kingsley set to reprise his Iron Man 3 role as Trevor Slattery. In April, Demetrius Grosse was confirmed as The Grim Reaper, while quite a few A-Listers - including Ed Harris and Courtney Cox - are rumoured to appear.
In terms of Wonder Man's creative team, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton is overseeing the series, while Andrew Guest has been tapped as Head Writer.
So, why would Marvel Studios scrap what sounds like one of its most exciting upcoming TV shows? Like Daredevil: Born Again, it's possible this story of a superhero who moonlights as a stuntman and actor simply wasn't working; we'd be shocked if the studio ditches a talent like Abdul-Mateen II, though, and imagine they'll at least turn this into a Special Presentation.
For now, this is just a rumour, so there's a chance we'll see Wonder Man as planned...still, with shows like Daredevil: Born Again and Ironheart not expected to arrive until 2025, who knows when that will be!
Wonder Man made his Marvel Comics debut in the pages of Avengers #9 in 1964. Initially a villain, he was later retconned and became a hero (and an Avenger) in the 1970s. His brother is the Grim Reaper, while it was his brainwaves that were used by Ultron as a basis for The Vision; later, he would join the West Coast Avengers and become a Hollywood star.
Stay tuned for updates.