Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has some questions about Marvel’s recent decisions. He thinks the media giant’s recent moves are all business driven.
As spotted on Deadline, the Emmy-winning actor addressed the abrupt cancellation of Wonder Man and the demise of Mahershala Ali’s long-delayed Blade reboot during a new interview with Vanity Fair.
When asked about the larger conversation surrounding two prominent Black-led Marvel projects failing to move forward, Abdul-Mateen didn’t mince words. “I think the optics are obvious,” he said. Abdul-Mateen stopped short of directly accusing Disney or Marvel of deliberately sidelining Black-led projects, but argued that a company as large as Disney should recognize how the situation looks and prioritize changing that perception through “quality stories, with quality resources.”
The conversation comes just weeks after Disney pulled the plug on Wonder Man, despite previously announcing that the Disney+ series would return for a second season. Abdul-Mateen starred as Simon Williams, an aspiring Hollywood actor who secretly possesses superpowers, alongside Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery. The show earned positive reviews following its debut, and Abdul-Mateen scored an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
Disney announced the Season 2 renewal in March but reversed course in late July. A writers’ room had not yet opened, although co-creator Andrew Guest later said contracts had been signed, schedules cleared and production was expected to begin early next year. As for why everything suddenly changed, Abdul-Mateen says he was told it came down to “viewership numbers.”
Disney has not publicly disclosed those numbers. Wonder Man did appear on Nielsen’s streaming originals chart during its debut week, reaching No. 8 before dropping out the following week. Abdul-Mateen told Vanity Fair that Marvel ultimately decided continuing the series no longer made sense from a business standpoint.
The cancellation becomes even more interesting considering what has happened with Blade. Marvel introduced Mahershala Ali as its new Daywalker at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, seemingly setting up the two-time Academy Award winner to succeed Wesley Snipes, who famously portrayed Blade across three films beginning in 1998.
Instead, Blade became one of the MCU’s most notorious cases of development hell. Bassam Tariq was originally hired to direct before exiting in 2022, shortly before production was expected to begin. Yann Demange later took over before departing in 2024, while the project also cycled through multiple screenwriters and dealt with pandemic-related setbacks and the 2023 Hollywood strikes.
Its theatrical release bounced from November 2023 to September 2024 and eventually November 2025 before Disney removed Blade from its release calendar entirely in October 2024. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige continued insisting that the studio remained committed to the character and Ali, even confirming in 2025 that the actor remained attached while admitting Marvel had yet to land on a screenplay it felt was strong enough to put into production.
By July 2026, however, Ali was done waiting. Speaking to GQ, the Moonlight actor confirmed that he had moved on from the project, saying, “If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it.” Ali has since reunited with Tariq for the upcoming action film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, even putting some of the physical training he originally did for Blade to use.
That history was the backdrop for Vanity Fair asking Abdul-Mateen about what kinds of stories Marvel and Disney are choosing to support. The actor believes Wonder Man deserves a closer examination, pointing to the quality of its cast, storytelling and resources, along with the response from audiences and Emmy voters, as reasons the series appeared to have many of the ingredients a studio would want from a successful project.
For Abdul-Mateen, Hollywood’s highs and lows remain part of the business. While Wonder Man may be finished, he seems ready to keep moving forward while leaving Marvel with a few uncomfortable optics to address.
