In 2023, Hollywood came to a standstill when members of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA went on strike. While writers and actors were right to drop tools, the strikes caused problems for many movies and TV shows, and around half of Wonder Man had been shot when they started.
Countless productions were impacted, and a few were outright scrapped. At a recent screening, Wonder Man showrunner Andrew Guest addressed how the strikes impacted the Marvel Spotlight series, and shared his belief that, for a time at least, the show was at risk.
"We were halfway through ours. You know, it could have been a tax write-off for Disney, but I know for a fact that the people who were producing this show, like Brian [Winderbaum] and all of our amazing team there, were fighting their asses off to make sure that we came back and finished this weird, melancholy show," the writer explained. "That, you know, was a big, big swing for them."
In terms of how the strikes benefited Wonder Man, Guest said that their downtime was spent "looking, thinking about it internally, and writing pages and pages of notes for when we came back. [They were] thick, but it was helpful in some ways."
Wonder Man is a big swing for Marvel Studios. Early reviews have been extremely positive, so it appears to have paid off, but the creative team was well aware that they were exploring uncharted territory in the MCU.
According to director Destin Daniel Cretton, "Our pitch really was character first. I think that when people say indie style, it typically is an aesthetic that is created to serve the performers. Because when you don't have a lot of money, that is the big explosions you don't get, your VFX you don't get. But what you can get is capture alive performances that are surprising."
"The aesthetic is kind of built around being able to let the actors have as much freedom as you can. And having an environment that can move nimbly."
Guest, meanwhile, acknowledges past concerns that Wonder Man's exploration of Hollywood and the acting profession might not resonate with audiences. Ultimately, that was secondary to the show's bigger themes.
"You know, I think there's a lot of concern often about doing a show about the entertainment industry that it's gonna feel too inside," he noted. "Everybody who works in this town feels like, 'Oh, we get this. We're gonna, we think it's funny. Will the rest of the world understand it?'"
"But I think the approach was to use all the lingo or inside stuff as specificity to create a story about somebody that anyone can relate to, somebody who's got a big dream, who's doing whatever they can to chase it. I feel like that's something that anyone can tap into...the goal was to create a grounded, different kind of show for Marvel."
Wonder Man follows aspiring Hollywood actor Simon Williams, who is struggling to get his career off the ground. During a chance meeting with Trevor Slattery, an actor whose biggest roles may be well behind him, Simon learns that legendary director Von Kovak is remaking the superhero film "Wonder Man."
These two actors, at opposite ends of their careers, doggedly pursue life-changing roles in this film as audiences get a peek behind the curtain of the entertainment industry.
All eight episodes of Wonder Man will stream exclusively on Disney+ at 6pm PT January 27.