Wonder Man was the second most watched Disney+ original television season in the United States over the first half of 2026, according to new mid-year figures from Luminate. Marvel Studios canceled it anyway, months after it had already been renewed for a second season.
The Luminate data, published by media analyst Tyler Aquilina, places the Yahya Abdul-Mateen II series at roughly 1.9 billion minutes streamed and an estimated seven million season views between January and June. It finished second in both categories, and in both cases it was beaten by another Marvel title: Daredevil: Born Again on minutes, and The Punisher: One Last Kill on views.
That second one is worth pausing on. The Punisher: One Last Kill is a single episode special presentation. It pulled more people than an eight episode season did, but not more time, which is exactly the gap between the two metrics and a useful reminder that a chart position depends on which one you pick.
Where Wonder Man Landed On The Chart
Daredevil: Born Again led the season-level chart with about 2.3 billion minutes for its second season. Wonder Man followed at 1.9 billion, then Percy Jackson and the Olympians season two at 1.8 billion, the first season of Daredevil: Born Again at 1.3 billion, and Star Wars: Maul, Shadow Lord at 1.1 billion.
Measured across whole series rather than single seasons, Wonder Man slips to fourth, and the chart produces the strangest line in the whole report. The Mandalorian pulled roughly 2.4 billion minutes in the first half of the year and ranked third among all Disney+ originals, behind Daredevil: Born Again at 3.6 billion across two seasons and Percy Jackson and the Olympians at 2.6 billion. The Mandalorian has not released a new episode since April 2023. Andor added 918 million minutes on catalog viewing a year after its final season aired.
Luminate Calls It A Bubble Show
Luminate published its own analysis of the cancellation, and its conclusion is that raw viewership was never the whole calculation. The company frames Wonder Man as a classic case of a series on the bubble that ultimately fell on the wrong side of it. That framing matters because the raw figures, taken alone, look like those of a hit.
Disney renewed Wonder Man in March and reversed the decision months later, before a second season writers room ever opened. Writers who had already been hired were released. Abdul-Mateen has since said publicly that the optics of the decision speak for themselves.
Luminate And Nielsen Are Not The Same Measurement
These numbers circulated online over the weekend of August 22 attributed to Nielsen, and that attribution is wrong. Luminate and Nielsen are separate analytics companies with separate methodologies, and on Disney+ they tell noticeably different stories.
Nielsen released its own mid-year streaming report covering the same six months. Netflix’s Stranger Things led everything with 23.26 billion minutes. Bluey finished second overall with 22.81 billion minutes on Disney+, the top acquired title of the period. HBO Max’s The Pitt was the second biggest original with 21.12 billion minutes.
The detail that should concern Disney sits in the breakdown of Nielsen’s top twenty originals. Netflix accounts for eleven of the twenty titles, nine of them exclusive to the service. Prime Video has four, one of them a kids title it shares with Netflix, which is why the per-service tallies add up to more than twenty. Hulu and Peacock have two each, and Apple TV, HBO Max and Paramount+ have one apiece. Disney+ is shut out entirely, in a six month stretch that included Percy Jackson, Daredevil: Born Again, Maul and Wonder Man.
Put the two data sets side by side and the shape of the platform becomes clearer. Disney+ has originals that perform respectably against each other, and a catalog title about a family of cartoon dogs that outperforms nearly everything on television. Wonder Man was near the top of the first list and absent from the second, and it is the second list that decides whether a show looks like a hit to anyone outside the building.
Sources: Luminate, Nielsen and TVLine. We covered the cancellation itself when it happened, in Wonder Man Has Been Cancelled At Disney+ Four Months After It Was Renewed.
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