Marvel's WONDER MAN Reportedly Hit Viewer and Retention Benchmarks But Still Got the Axe

The path of Marvel’s Disney+ series Wonder Man has been a rocky one. The show’s debut season premiered in January of this year, and with solid reviews and viewership, it received a season 2 renewal in March. Then, in July, it was announced that the series had been canceled. While some reports have claimed that the series didn’t bring in the numbers the studio needed to keep it running, a new set of data tells a different story.

Deadline reports that the latest statistics from the company Luminate suggests the key benchmark for streaming services is a 50% retention rate, meaning at least half of the audience that started the first episode made it to the end.

But it turns out that metric was ignored for Marvel’s Wonder Man on Disney+, Prime Video’s On Call, and Netflix’s The Waterfront, who all exceeded that 50% benchmark and were still dropped. The Waterfront had the highest of them all with 62% of the audience sticking with the series in the first 12 weeks of release.

The report notes that Wonder Man, particularly, was a perplexing case, because of that initial season 2 renewal. Luminate says the series retained 52% of its audience over 12 weeks. While this is not an exact science, and the decisions largely depend on the people making the decisions at each streaming service, it does lead to confusion when a show you enjoyed gets canceled even after meeting the supposed rubrics.