‘Marvel Zombies’ Gets New Details Ahead of Release: Everything We Know So Far

Marvel Zombies is a new animated miniseries coming to Disney+, created by Zeb Wells. It’s part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and produced by Marvel Studios Animation. The show takes place in an alternate timeline from the What If…? episode “What If… Zombies?!” and follows a group of survivors fighting heroes and villains who have turned into zombies.

Bryan Andrews is the showrunner and director, with Wells as head writer. The series features a big cast, including Awkwafina, David Harbour, Simu Liu, Elizabeth Olsen, Randall Park, Florence Pugh, Hailee Steinfeld, Dominique Thorne, Iman Vellani, and Todd Williams. Many actors are returning to play their MCU roles. Recently, the showrunners revealed new details about the show, so let’s check them out.

1. The show was originally planned as a movie

Unlike What If…?, Marvel Zombies won’t jump between different stories. Instead, it will follow one continuous story of superheroes facing their toughest challenges yet. The show was originally planned as a single zombie movie, and that cinematic feel remains across the four episodes. Showrunner Bryan Andrews described it as “one story. It’s one throughline. A lot of insanity happens.”

“It’s like, originally, we were thinking it’d be a movie, if like, ‘Ooh, we should release it as a movie.’ We should just do a movie. But there were some things that came up, certain issues that we just had to kind of, ‘Oh let’s break it. We’ll have to break it up into four episodes.’

2. It’s going to be the first Marvel Disney+ animated show with TV-MA rating

Zeb Wells wrote the Marvel Zombies scripts with stories he developed alongside Bryan Andrews. The series is “pretty intense,” with violence comparable to the comics, and carries a TV-MA rating, allowing for a more hardcore approach.

Andrews said the show mixes humor with action, violence, drama, and emotion, creating a story that goes beyond typical zombie tales. Profanity is used sparingly, and the mature rating reflects the combination of violence and intense character moments.

“I think the rating comes from the level of violence and or intensity of the moments that the characters find themselves in. And yeah, blood gets spilled, and we want to be able to see that.””Andrews said to Collider.

3. It has an absolutely massive cast list

The series features Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, a martial artist who was trained as an assassin and now uses the mystical Ten Rings to prevent a zombie infection from spreading. Awkwafina plays his best friend, Katy, while David Harbour stars as Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier and father-figure to Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh, a skilled spy trained in the Red Room. Elizabeth Olsen appears as a zombie version of Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, wielding chaos magic and reality-altering powers. Randall Park returns as former FBI agent Jimmy Woo, and Hailee Steinfeld plays Kate Bishop, a young archer trained by Clint Barton.

The cast also includes Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams / Ironheart, a genius inventor with her own suit of armor, and Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel, a central character who can harness cosmic energy. Hudson Thames reprises his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, and Todd Williams appears in an unspecified role. Additional characters include survivors like Death Dealer, Blade Knight (a combination of Blade and Moon Knight), and Xu Wenwu, alongside several zombified heroes including Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, Carol Danvers, Emil Blonsky, Ava Starr, Ikaris, and Okoye.

4. It’s going to be Character-driven and emotional

The creators emphasized that while the miniseries includes zombie violence and gore, it isn’t gratuitous. The focus remains on character-driven storytelling and emotional arcs, with blood and gore used sparingly so as not to overshadow the story. Violence occurs naturally within the zombie-apocalypse setting, but it serves the narrative rather than existing for shock value or spectacle.

“Character-driven, emotion, people dealing with stuff. All that good stuff. It’s just that when something happens and it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I just got ripped apart. Oh, damn.’ But we move on because it’s not about like… ‘And look at all the things that we’re doing! Wow!’ I think a lot of stuff that goes for an MA rating sometimes, they’re doing it to do that as opposed to using that rating to allow them to be unfettered in how they tell their story, as opposed to just being gratuitous about one aspect.”

5. Scarlet Witch is rumored to be the main villain

In the show, Wanda will be called the Dead Queen, leading hordes of undead with her chaos magic and insatiable hunger. She already proved she could go toe-to-toe with anyone when she survived a battle with the Hulk, and yes, the Hulk will also appear in the show. Okoye, the Wakandan warrior, will serve as a secondary villain, leading an undead army under the Dead Queen’s command.

6. Premieres September 24

The show is set to premiere on Disney+ on September 24, 2025, as part of Phase Six of the MCU. The miniseries will consist of four episodes, released weekly.

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