The recent release of the full trailer for the Marvel Zombies TV show is another reminder of how quietly jam-packed 2025 has been for Marvel Television. This division of Marvel Studios has been on a tear in 2025, delivering various live-action and animated programs for the Disney+ platform. Between Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Daredevil: Born Again, Ironheart, Eyes of Wakanda, and upcoming projects Marvel Zombies and Wonder Man, 2025 will see six seasons of Marvel television hit this streaming platform.
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That’s easily the most episodes of exclusive Marvel television programming to debut on Disney+ within a calendar year. It’s also a fascinating counterpoint to a recent Disney promise to significantly reduce the number of Marvel TV programs released each year.
Why Is 2025 Crammed With Marvel Television Shows?
In response to Marvel’s 2023 creative and financial woes stemming from projects like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion, Marvel Studios and Disney brass began announcing that there would be a significant decrease in how many Marvel Cinematic Universe projects were released each year. With even Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige allegedly feeling that the ballooning number of MCU projects had become more like homework than entertainment, it was time for a change. The MCU would now go back to two or three theatrical movies a year and only a handful of annual TV shows.
Given that these comments have been publicly bandied about for nearly two years, it’s somewhat bizarre to see Marvel Television drop six new seasons of small-screen programming in 2025. Unfortunately, this year looks to be Marvel getting all of its backlogged TV shows out of its system before fully committing to a lower volume of annual releases. The various Marvel Animation shows like Spider-Man and Marvel Zombies are especially relics of the early 2020s, when Marvel was going full-throttle on animated programming based on What If…?‘s first season and Disney’s demand for as much streaming “content” as possible.
Naturally, when Marvel needed to cut back on its programming slate, animated shows set in alternate universes that weren’t X-Men ’97, not to mention animated programs like Marvel Zombies that drag big-screen movie characters to television, got on the chopping block first. Thus, Marvel Television is now burning off even in-canon animated shows like Eyes of Wakanda throughout 2025 with minimal advanced promotion.
Yes, 2025 is bringing six new seasons of Marvel programming. However, it’s not like 2021, when five new seasons of MCU shows dropped, each with a massive marketing blitzkrieg. Most of 2025’s MCU programs are getting quietly plopped onto Disney+ with minimal fanfare, partially to ensure people don’t expect to see more programming like it in the future.
Delays Informed Marvel’s Crowded 2025 Slate
Delays for a slew of MCU projects have also informed 2025’s crowded slate of Marvel TV shows. Rather than Marvel and Disney explicitly backtracking on a promise to dial back Marvel Television’s output, 2025’s deluge of Marvel/Disney+ productions is a result of some shows getting stuck on a shelf too long. Ironheart, for instance, was just in summer 2022, three full years before its premiere. Wonder Man, meanwhile, started shooting in April 2023 yet won’t debut until December 2025, nearly three years after cameras started rolling.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was also scheduled for a 2024 bow before delays ensured it launched in early 2025. Inevitable postponements just led to these shows all debuting this year. Part of that was some shows getting held back as Marvel figured out what its future plans would look like. 2023’s dual strikes also affected programs like Daredevil: Born Again, once set for 2024. Ironheart and Wonder Man‘s launches, meanwhile, were byproducts of Marvel slowing down its live-action TV show output. While 2022 had three seasons of new live-action programming, 2023 and 2024 each saw only two new seasons of live-action MCU TV shows hitting Disney+. Spacing live-action programming out ensured Ironheart and Wonder Man couldn’t hit their original release plans.
2026 looks to be a tad sparser and more precise in how much Marvel programming gets released, with only new Daredevil: Born Again, X-Men ’97, and Spider-Man seasons launching, plus the miniseries Vision Quest. That more restrained 2026 output solidifies that 2025 is an outlier as Marvel and Disney emphasize a “less is more” approach to Marvel Television’s output. Still, given how much these two companies have been emphasizing minimizing Marvel streaming programs in recent years, it’s certainly amusing how 2025’s unleashed an avalanche of MCU TV shows.
All four episodes of Marvel Zombies drop on Disney+ on September 24.
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