Marvel debuts ‘Wonder Man,’ a Hollywood-set, character-focused series on Disney+

Marvel Studios’ new series Wonder Man, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley, will debut on Disney+ on Tuesday night, shifting the studio’s storytelling to a Hollywood-set character piece rather than a conventional superhero spectacle. The series grew from a joke on the set of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and pairs Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery with an inverted take on the comic-book Wonder Man: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Simon Williams, an actor who happens to have superpowers that the creators made into a problem rather than an asset, the showrunners said.

Andrew Guest, who pitched a Midnight Cowboy–style tale, and co-creator and director Destin Daniel Cretton pursued a grounded, comedic character study about two narcissists who learn to care for one another, and Abdul-Mateen said he sought to play “a real person.” The series also establishes a rule in its world that superpowered beings are barred from performing on film and TV.

Marvel has framed Wonder Man as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with tenuous connections — chiefly Kingsley’s Trevor and Arian Moayed’s Agent Cleary — and, Brad Winderbaum said, made the show with “one of the lowest, if not the lowest, budget we’ve worked with” for TV. Creators warned that it departs from typical superhero fare and acknowledged it may not please all viewers.