The next Marvel TV show is coming sooner than expected, and will continue a trend that once seemed unlikely for the Disney-owned MCU. There is a slight slowdown of content production at Marvel, which comes after its rapid expansion into streaming on Disney+ – something that everyone involved seems to agree was too much, too fast. However, it might not necessarily feel like it for subscribers: 2025 has already brought four MCU TV shows to the service – Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Daredevil: Born Again, Ironheart, and Eyes of Wakanda – and there are two more on the way.
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It’s expected that Wonder Man will close out the year with a December release, but before then will be Marvel Zombies, which is coming to the streamer in September. The animated series, which serves as a spinoff of What If…?, will consist of four episodes, following the surviving characters as they face off against villains and former heroes who have been turned into zombies by a virus. It’ll be another all at once release and, notably, will carry a TV-MA rating, becoming the third MCU Disney+ TV show to do so.
This shift to more mature content on Disney+ started with Echo, which was the franchise’s first TV-MA rated series. This was followed on the big screen by the R-Rated Deadpool & Wolverine (which is also streaming on Disney+), and then another TV-MA show in Daredevil: Born Again. The MCU has long been aimed at kids and adults alike, but is now diversifying its content more, and Marvel Zombies highlights that better than anything. Not only is it the third show to carry that more mature rating, but the first animated series to do so – a medium often thought of as being more child-friendly.
That itself, however, is something of a Marvel trend, albeit not one that existed on Disney+. The Hulu shows M.O.D.O.K and Hit-Monkey were also TV-MA rated animated series, but with Marvel Zombies existing as a clearer part of the MCU’s multiverse and on Disney+, it feels like an even bigger deal. At the same time, however, the rating isn’t a surprising one. Anything with “Zombies” in the title brings the promise of violence and gore, and it seems like this will be delivering on that, with plenty of blood being splattered and characters dying.
Getting the balance of its more mature content and characters right is a fine line for Marvel. The upcoming Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 rating will surely be TV-MA, and presumably The Punisher‘s Special Presentation will have an R-Rating. Both of those continue on from the Netflix Marvel era, where those shows were already delivering more violent, bloody scenes. However, The Punisher will also appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which we can safely assume won’t be Rated-R, so it’ll be interesting to see how it handles the character there.
With those and things like Marvel Zombies, though, it’s great to see Marvel and Disney unafraid to explore a more adult side of the MCU. There are other projects that would benefit from it as well – like, say, if its Blade reboot ever happens, or it were to bring back Jessica Jones for her own series after Born Again Season 2 – and so the more proof there is that it works, the better.
Marvel Zombies will be released on Disney+ on September 24th, 2025.
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