Marvel Zombies is the latest animated Disney Plus effort from the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. It comes after the first season episode of fellow Marvel Animation series What If...? featured the the episode “What If…Zombies?”, which saw an attempt to rescue Janet Van Dyne from the Quantum Realm unleash a virus that transformed most of humanity, including several heroes, into zombies. Well, Marvel Zombies is a spinoff of that series / episode and it is also based on the wild comic mini-series that began in 2005.
It picks up the tale as a ragtag resistance tries to combat the superpowered undead and perhaps find a cure to this whole mess. That has them tangling with a zombified version of Thanos and a surprise threat in the Scarlet Witch. That resistance features folks like Ms. Marvel, Shang-Chi and it also features the MCU debut of Blade.
It was a big show for sure, but it was originally set to be a movie rather than a series!
Why Marvel Zombies wasn't a movie
Speaking to Variety, director Bryan Andrews explained that the show was actually finished a year ago but held back as Marvel didn’t want it airing at the same time as Agatha All Along. It’s also why Blade is in the show, as at the time, they had no idea of the massive number of delays the planned Blade movie would face (also, how the Marvel Zombies version is a mix of Blade and Moon Knight).
Andrews then revealed that that the series was originally going to be a movie, but the reason that it wasn't to be was simple: Spider-Man.
"It should be an epic. It's gonna be two, two and a half hours long. It's gonna be amazing. But, there were contractual issues because of Spider-Man in it. So, there are Sony rules that come into play. We were like, 'Oh s—, that's a thing? Oh no, okay, I guess we can't do that.' So we broke it up.”
This is, of course, a reference to the long-standing rights issues surrounding Spider-Man. To make it as simple as possible, Sony got the film rights to the character in the 1990s and finally used them for the Sam Raimi films. They also planned a “Spider-Verse” that faltered but they do collaborate with Marvel Studios on the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies (with the fourth installment in that franchise, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, currently filming).
Disney/Marvel are allowed to use the character in animated series (hence the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man animated series) but an animated film appearance from Spider-Man would have violated the rules. That meant Marvel Zombies had to be a series, which Winderbaum believes worked out better.
"Now, it plays like four chapters in a book. Even with the four chapters, it would have been awesome if we had more time to make each installment a little bit longer, just so we could milk those quiet moments a bit longer. We tried to put it in as much as possible, and it moves at a breakneck pace. We put in those moments of stillness and reflection as best we could. Maybe next time around, if everyone loves it enough and yells online enough to demand more, maybe they'll give us more time and more money."
All involved are hopeful that the show can get another season, with Andrews pointing out the huge potential in more of this universe of zombie heroes and the series ending on a cliffhanger hints at more to come. Yet it’s interesting to consider how, if not for the unique rights issues around Spider-Man, Marvel Zombies would have been the MCU’s first animated movie epic rather than a Disney+ show.
Marvel Zombies is now streaming on Disney Plus.