A Live Action 'Marvel Zombies' Could Be In The Works
Marvel Zombies is one of the most popular alternate universes in the Marvel comic book universe. With their appearance in Disney+’s Marvel series What If…? their popularity has increased. Now, there are talks that there may perhaps be a live-action Marvel project involving the Marvel Zombies alternate universe.
According to Mark Millar, one of the Marvel comic book writers, a live-action project could be in the works. In Millar’s newsletter, he discusses Marvel Zombies after one of the What If…? episodes where they played a prominent role. He footnotes an anecdote about the original comic book series by saying “(If my sources are correct) a little live-action Marvel Zombies further down the line, but you never heard it from me.” What could this comment mean exactly?
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The popular five-issue limited series, Marvel Zombies, was written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Sean Phillips. It ran December 2005 – April 2006. The alternate universe that it is set in, Earth-2149, spins out of the Ultimate Fantastic Four comic series. Marvel Zombies focuses on the various heroes and villains that Marvel fans know so well transformed into the popular trope of literature and film, flesh-eating zombies. They are all turned into zombies due to a virus from another dimension. There were several sequels that came from the story, including crossover comics with Dynamite Entertainment’s Army of Darkness. There were multiple tie-ins as well including a recent one that came out in 2020 with Marvel Zombies: Resurrection.
The resurgence of love by fans for this plotline in Marvel is brought even further with the episode of What If…? The plot of the episode is very similar to that of the original comic in that it shows the various members of the Avengers turning into Zombies after Hank Pym discovered Janet van Dyne had been infected with a virus from the Quantum Realm. Of course, since the natural flow of a zombie story is that everyone around the zombie gets infected as well, Hank Pym becomes infected and then spreads the virus onto Scott Lang, which of course keeps spreading to Hulk, Black Panther, Vision, Winter Soldier, Wasp, Okoye, Spider-Man, and Captain America. Many others are also infected, and the story turns into a zombie apocalypse story. And one of the most fascinating and kind of silly and random plotlines of the Marvel comic series suddenly turned absolutely terrifying as it brought the zombies to screen.
In terms of the rumors of a live-action version of Marvel Zombies being brought to screen, Mark Millar isn’t the only one to hint at it happening. The topic of zombies in literature and film has been making a resurgence after the 2000s craze perpetrated by The Walking Dead, among many other projects that focused on the popular monster form.
In August, Jim Shooter, one of Marvel Comics editor-in chiefs, mentioned and implied that perhaps a Marvel Zombies project could be coming as the live-action Secret Wars project that had been rumored.
"This one clown called me from Marvel. He wasn't an editor, but some executive of property management which was a little odd. He asked me if I wanted to write a novelization of Secret Wars."
The “clown” in question was Marvel’s David Bogart, one of the editors of Marvel Comics. Jim Shooter questioned David Bogart: “This means you’re making a movie right?” To which David Bogart reportedly replied: “I’m not allowed to tell you that.” And then Shooter replied with, “Well, I think you just did."
Could these hints of a live-action Marvel Zombies be true? Who knows? Although there does seem to be some compelling evidence. With Marvel’s focus on the alternate universes on live-action and animated screen projects, first introduced in the Disney+ Loki series, it could very well be possible that they would bring in Earth-2149’s zombie apocalypse. Especially if the topic of virus causing zombies is making a comeback in literature and film. Perhaps we might also see some of this in the upcoming movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania since the virus itself, in the comics and in What If…? originates from the Quantum Realm. This is one of the other rumors circulating around whether or not we will see more of Marvel Zombies in the live-action.
Hopefully soon Marvel will give more hints to what their illusive story Secret Wars will be about and whether or not it will actually be turned into a live-action Marvel Zombies film or series.
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