All four episodes of Marvel Zombies are now on Disney+ to watch in their bloody, brain-munching glory. But with a wild cliffhanger ending, and the show itself being a sequel to a What If…? episode it’s natural to wonder: Will there be more episodes of Marvel Zombies? Is Marvel Zombies getting a Season 2?
This is gonna be a short piece because unless the animated show absolutely crushes in Disney+ streaming numbers, the answer is: almost definitely not on either count. But in the interest of not having a one word article that says “no” let’s dig into it a little further.
Will There Be More Episodes Of Marvel Zombies?
Four episodes seems pretty short for a season of TV, and Disney+ has pretty weird, non-consistent episode drops. So it’s reasonable to think that we may be getting four episodes this week, and more next week.
Unfortunately, if you’re hungering for more Marvel Zombies, you’re going to keep shambling around for a while with no end in sight: the four episodes of Marvel Zombies currently streaming are the “complete” season of the show. I’m putting complete in quotes because it’s up to you how satisfying an ending that was.
So that’s it for Marvel Zombies for the moment, but what about the future?
Is Marvel Zombies getting a Season 2?
Marvel Zombies was always planned as a four episode expansion of the What If…? season 1 episode “What If… Zombies?!” and as far as has been publicly announced there’s no more planned.
Mind you, if there is a Marvel Zombies Season 2, they have ideas. In an interview with Variety, director Bryan Andrews explained further.
“So much material,” Andrews said on what was left on the draft room floor. “It’s crazy. There are other characters that people are like, “So-and-so is not even in it.” Yeah, we know. We know what’s going on. We know how people got from A to B. You guys have no idea the insanity that’s just waiting around the corner if we get a chance. Brad and I already know how the next one would start already. Our original idea was more medieval fantasy. It was set so far after the different kingdoms, fiefdoms and ruling factions have grown. Some of our old guard would be old. We were doing crazy shit. Brad wisely said people want to see their favorites and not see them so crazy. We rolled it back and didn’t time-jump so far forward.”
There are a number of extra reasons though to throw cold water on a potential second season. First is that this was greenlit in 2021, when Marvel and the MCU was still at its peak post-Avengers Endgame. Since then, a lot has changed, including Marvel’s cultural dominance, behind-the-scenes changes, and a realignment of Marvel Studios to include Marvel Television and Marvel Animation divisions.
On the latter point, live-action has pivoted from short “more of a six episode movie” style shows to more traditional TV structure: longer seasons, a pilot process, showrunners, and more. While we have yet to see this in action beyond Daredevil: Born Again, it’s likely the same approach is being taken with Marvel Animation, which has similarly struggled. After dropping lauded seasons of X-Men ‘97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man followed by long gaps, it seems like Marvel is working to get these shows and others on a more regular schedule. That contrasts with the reportedly extremely expensive Marvel Zombies and Eyes of Wakanda, which dropped all four episodes at the same time.
There’s another factor here which is that no Marvel animated show in the modern era has charted in the Top 10 on Nielsen’s independently reported streaming charts. All this means is that like a lot of the waning, enormously budgeted streaming era of live-action TV, this sort of big budget approach is being phased out all over because it doesn’t have the sort of return streamers need.
Point being: we’re likely to see less “event” style programming like Marvel Zombies from Marvel Animation going forward, and more traditionally paced and structured animated seasons of TV.
That said? Never say never. While it’s unlikely these MCU-voiced shows will continue, anything is possible. And if Marvel Zombies does become a breakout hit (Nielsen reports numbers about 30 days later), Marvel might want a second bite, after all.
Listen to MarvelVision:
Discover more from Comic Book Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.