Marvel super hero actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is reacting to the cancellation of his streaming series, Wonder Man, and he clearly thinks that there is a racial component to the cancellation.
Abdul-Mateen earned critical praise for his turn as super hero Wonder Man. He also landed an Emmy nomination and saw his series immediately picked up for a second season just two months after the series debuted on Disney+.
However, in July, Marvel backtracked on the commitment to a second season and announced that Wonder Man was not going forward. Abdul-Mateen is now revealing what executives told him about the decision, but he is also blaming show the being chopped on racism.
Abdul-Mateen says executives told him that even though the show met critical acclaim, the viewership just wasn’t there to warrant a second season.
“I was told that it had something to do with the viewership numbers,” Abdul-Mateen told Vanity Fair. “I wasn’t told what those numbers were, but ultimately, for whatever reason it was, I think they decided that it didn’t make sense for business, and that’s the decision that we live with and we keep on marching forward.”
The actor added that he felt his limited series delivered quality entertainment.
“I felt that our show did have quality story, did have quality resources, did have quality actors and people, and did produce quality results that the viewers responded to positively, that the voters responded to positively,” he said. “So, our show does deserve some study and some real, hard information about why a show like this did not continue forward, because it had all of the ingredients that one would want in a show.”
But he went on to say that the “optics” of cancelling so many minority projects does not look good for Disney and Marvel.
“I think the optics are obvious,” he insisted. “If I’m a big business, if I’m Disney, if I’m Marvel, I don’t want to be attached to these optics. So, it should be a priority to change that narrative and to do what it takes to responsibly change that narrative with quality stories, with quality resources.”
Abdul-Mateen is not the only black Marvel actor to accuse the studio of having a race problem.
Actor Mahershala Ali, who was cast to appear in a remake of Marvel’s Blade series, also found his project cancelled and he also went out and ripped the Disney-owned studio for failing to bring his film to fruition.
Marvel has put the kibosh on a number of minority-led projects, including Captain America starring Anthony Mackie, followup to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, a new Ghost Rider starring a Hispanic lead, and the Moon Knight series, which closed the books on Marvel’s Middle Eastern-themed character.
The piling up of cancellations of minority-led projects has many charging Marvel with “racism.”
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