It’s been confirmed that Wonder Man will be developed as a standalone Marvel Spotlight TV series, and Marvel executive Brad Winderbaum opens up about resurrecting the “Marvel Television” banner for Disney+ and what that means.
The Marvel Spotlight projects are meant to be one-off, character-driven shows that have fewer connections to the wider MCU. These are basically one and done limited series for Marvel.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Daniel Destin Cretton is developing the upcoming Wonder Man series with Andrew Guest (Hawkeye) serving as head writer and executive producer.
While talking to Variety, Winderbaum went on to explain their approach to Marvel Television: “There was a lot of pressure post-‘Avengers: Endgame’ on the public to feel obligated to watch absolutely everything in order to watch anything.
“Part of the rebranding was a signal to the general audience that we’re creating a lot of options, and you can follow your tastes within this brand.”
He went on to explain: “Some will be more comedic, some will be more dramatic, some will be animated, some will be live-action. Marvel is more than just one thing – it is actually many different genres that just happened to coexist in a single narrative.
“The characters still live and breathe in the same universe, but the interconnectivity is not so rigid that you need to watch Project A to understand Project B.”
He adds: “We were already, as of two years ago, adapting our process from being, you know, fill the service as fast as possible no matter what, to a more considered approach. I really like the idea of two shows a year, especially because we are developing more than we make.”
“We used to treat the shows like the features where we’re gonna make a show and that’s it, we’re going to hit a release date, hell or high water. Well, it’s hard to do for a two hour feature, it’s even harder to do for, six, seven, eight, nine hours. So now we have a more traditional approach.”
As for Wonder Man, Cretton will direct the first two episodes. It was already revealed that Ben Kingsley is also set to reprise his role of Trevor Slattery in the series. The series cast also includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Wonder Man, Demetrius Grosse as Eric Williams/Grim Reaper, Ed Harris as Neal Saroyan, Bob Odenkirk, Lauren Glazier, Courtney Cox, and Josh Gad.
The series will focus on the Marvel character Simon Williams, a.k.a. Wonder Man. In the comics, he is “the son of a wealthy industrialist whose company falls on hard times due to competition from Tony Stark’s Stark Industries. As a result, Williams accepts an offer from villain Baron Zemo that gives him ionic superpowers including super strength and durability. After fighting the Avengers several times, Wonder Man ultimately joined their ranks.”
