Marvel Studios has released its first trailer for Wonder Man, and it looks like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to get very meta. Wonder Man will star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the titular character, an actor who is auditioning for a part in a superhero reboot. The project has generated some buzz as rumors have called it “the best Marvel show ever,” and the new trailer hints at the direction the series will go.
Marvel Studios has officially released a new teaser trailer for Wonder Man. The footage gives viewers an update on the overall story, as it will center on a reboot of a Wonder Man film within the MCU, with Abdul-Mateen II’s Simon Williams auditioning to play the lead role. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, producer Brad Winderbaum confirmed that Wonder Man would be moving from December 2025 to January 2026 as they “don’t want it to get swallowed up by people watching Home Alone and Die Hard and Elf.” Watch the trailer below:
‘Wonder Man’ Sees the MCU Poke Fun at Itself
While Marvel Studios has dabbled in meta-commentary with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Deadpool & Wolverine, Wonder Man looks to be satirizing the very concept of superhero movies. It looks to tackle many ideas that audience members have, including the concept of superhero fatigue, as the fictional director, Von Kovak, says, “Why one more superhero film? Everyone is tired of superheroes.” It is even taking a jab at the idea of reboots, one Marvel Studios has done with Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and soon will need to do with X-Men and Blade.
The trailer also seems to emphasize that casting Simon Williams as Wonder Man might be a big deal, given that the character in the comics and the MCU is traditionally depicted as a white man, while the MCU’s version is a Black man. The topic of race-bending roles has been one that draws outrage from a certain subset of viewers, and Marvel Studios is no stranger to it, as a white supremacist group in 2011 called for a boycott of Thor due to the decision to cast acclaimed actor Idris Elba as Heimdall. While those people were typically ignored, in recent years their voices have been amplified into targeted harassment campaigns against stars like Halle Bailey in The Little Mermaid, Nico Parker in How to Train Your Dragon, and even Yahya Abdul-Mateen II when he was cast as Wonder Man.
While Wonder Man will no longer close out Marvel Studios’ 2025 slate, moving it out of the busy holiday season might be for the best, as releasing around that time might have hurt the Star Wars series, Skeleton Crew. Now, Wonder Man will kick off 2026 the same way WandaVision did back in 2021. With Marvel Studios only releasing two films in 2026, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday, it will be the Disney+ series that delivers most of the MCU’s story next year, with Wonder Man, Daredevil: Born Again, and potentially Vision Quest.
- Release Date
-
December, 2025
- Network
-
Disney+
- Writers
-
Andrew Guest