Why are all the new animated series 4 episodes?

First they started with 10, then 8 per season, then 6, and now only 4? What is going on? Why aren’t they releasing more episodes per season? Worse yet the run times for each episode is still 30 minutes. What is going on with Kevin Fiege?

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Commentaires

RubiconPizzaDelivery2025-10-07 06:03

I think this is part of why they're going to longer, multi season shows.

Media as a whole has gotten shorter, more bite sized across the board. It's only natural TV would not be exempt.

Octoberboiy2025-10-07 15:45

Why though? The ending of Marvel Zombies was cut short when it could’ve been fleshed out with at the very least two more episodes.

RubiconPizzaDelivery2025-10-07 15:50

I believe it was originally a movie, but Spider-Man rights issues forced them to chop it up into a four episode show. So it felt that way because it's literally a movie.

Purple-Nectarine832025-10-07 21:14

They’re making another season, so it can get “fleshed out” (heh) with that.

boyawsome8762025-10-07 06:08

4 isn’t the norm going forward, they just planned for zombies to be a movie but couldnt have it be one, so they just cut it into 4 episodes instead.

Defiant_Wheel48882025-10-07 06:59

yeah this convince for me .

blackbutterfree2025-10-07 07:10

That doesn't explain Eyes of Wakanda.

thamometer2025-10-07 07:38

>they just planned for it to be a movie but couldnt have it be one, so they just cut it into 4 episodes instead.

DefNotAShark2025-10-07 07:43

Marvel Zombies was planned to be a movie (cut into episodes because Spider-Man is in it) but as far as I know, Eyes of Wakanda was always designed as an anthology series.

thamometer2025-10-07 08:02

Hahaha I was just being lame by giving the same reason as above.

Caciulacdlac2025-10-10 20:32

Do we need an explanation? It simply had 4 episodes.

blackbutterfree2025-10-10 20:50

When What If, X-Men '97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man all had 8 or more per season, and even I Am Groot had 5 per season, yeah we do need an explanation for why the only animated show with a fully Black cast got relegated to just 4 episodes.

Ok-Animator88262025-11-02 06:14

Oh boy here's the race card comment. We all saw it coming.

CheerfulLonewolf552025-10-07 07:59

Really felt like it was originally the team up movie to conclude the phase 4. Like with the same premise but something else.

Bruhimonlyeleven2025-10-07 10:51

It's literally a movie though. They just put credits in the commercial breaks.

WaitingOnARide2025-10-07 15:10

If it was *literally* a movie then Sony would be suing them for it

thinkinting2025-10-07 16:16

Sony would also spoil 90% of the plot in the trailer too.

robopandabot2025-10-07 16:26

And they’d find a way to put Jared Leto into it.

mcon962025-10-07 17:32

Unlike Marvel, who has notoriously never spoiled a large portion of the plot in the trailers

UnintelligibleMaker2025-10-08 06:07

Is that true if it just streams and is never distributed?

Griffdude132025-10-07 19:39

Or is there a booking thing that helps the studio financially by making it a tv show vs a movie?

CaptHayfever2025-10-07 21:36

Yeah, it's called Spider-Man.

fishwallet162025-10-07 06:08

iirc for marvel zombies it was meant to be movie length but because of spiderman and sony they only allowed a tv episode style release so thats what we ended up having

soberonlife2025-10-07 06:09

From what I understand, Marvel Zombies was originally going to be a movie but they had to chop it up into a TV show since Sony has the film rights (but not the TV rights) to Spider-Man

A two hour movie chops nicely into four 30-min episodes.

igby12025-10-07 06:09

I’d rather have shorter seasons that are good than longer seasons that are mid.

BookieeWookiee2025-10-07 06:25

I miss filler episodes where the characters could interact and grow with each other outside of the main storyline

igby12025-10-07 06:28

That’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone describe filler episodes in a positive light.

If an episode provides good character development I personally wouldn’t describe it as “filler”.

LnStrngr2025-10-07 06:34

I wouldn't call them "filler" but it's not a new idea. "[Bottle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_episode)" episodes have been used to move character development forward for decades.

igby12025-10-07 06:38

For those craving more character development with their zombie apocalypse, The Walking Dead’s **177 episodes** should scratch that itch.

LnStrngr2025-10-07 06:44

We gave up near the end of FtWD and didn't bother with the newer spin-offs.

Ebessan2025-10-07 06:15

Again I will put forth my unpopular theory that Kevin Feige lost his passion for this years ago and nobody has noticed.

DaNoahLP2025-10-07 06:25

Everyone has noticed

LADYBIRD_HILL2025-10-07 07:07

Despite the fact that Fantastic Four was a passion project of his?

walartjaegers2025-10-07 07:12

Yeah he's clearly still hyped about bringing together the X-Men, F4, etc. and finally realizing his vision from the 2000s.

He hasn't entirely "lost his passion" as much as he's just had to do all this other stuff he's probably not as interested in (with little grace from audiences).

geek_of_nature2025-10-07 07:23

That probably should have been his focus for this Saga then, bringing all them in at the start, and leaving the multiverse for later. While also setting someone to succeed him too.

walartjaegers2025-10-07 07:53

I don't disagree, but he was personally involved in the Fox movies, so I think that he wanted to do this himself before being succeeded (personally think he's retiring after this saga). Also Stewart/McKellen wouldn't be an option.

Ebessan2025-10-07 09:11

I loved Fantastic Four, but it was barely connected to anything and it could not be more clear that everyone wants Marvel movies to tie together and build to something.

This is why everyone is talking about Superman and nobody is talking about Fantastic Four.

GoatDifferent12942025-10-07 06:20

Someone would complain either way

ChildofObama2025-10-07 06:22

Disney+ shows seem to be largely on the way out besides Born Again and X-men 97; a lot of these animated projects are holdovers from the Chapek era they’re releasing cuz they were too far along before the recent restructuring.

FeralPsychopath2025-10-07 06:45

It didn’t start with 10. It was 24 if they were 30mins. Streaming started the 10/8 norm.

Octoberboiy2025-10-07 15:47

That’s what I meant. Disney plus started out with 10 episodes. She Hulk had about that many episodes.

Defiant_Wheel48882025-10-07 06:58

If I remember, most of the animated Marvel series started from *Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes*. It had around 26 episodes, each running for 21 minutes. Then it was cut short—originally planned for 3 seasons but reduced to 2 seasons, and from 26 episodes to just 9 episodes in *What If...?*

Now *What If...?* season 3 has 8 episodes. Same goes for series like *Loki*, which also changed to 6 episodes. Only *Agatha* has 9 episodes, because it has the same director, of wandavision.

I personally think Marvel wants to cut down the cost of production and make the shows shorter, so we get quality episodes.
If you film 9 episodes or more, you will obviously need to spend more. It’s a TV show, so there's a lot of VFX work involved (*She-Hulk*), and that can badly impact theatrical films like *Thor: Love and Thunder* (e.g., the floating head of Heimdall's son—poor VFX).

So Kevin \[Feige\] is possibly making the shows shorter and saying, “This is what this series is. There’s nothing much more to say.”

In *Marvel Zombies* specifically, you can tell a lot of stories—for example, Red Guardian’s dad’s love story kind of stuff—but you can’t stretch that out to 9 episodes full of just the dead and blood shots. It’s R-rated as well, so they’re cutting it short and maybe giving it 2 or 3 seasons to build anticipation (and subscriptions) too. The director of the show said season 2 would get renewed based on new Disney+ subscriptions.

Octoberboiy2025-10-07 15:52

Well they’re going to lose my subscription cause there’s no content on the platform. I finished both Zombies and Eyes of Wakanda in two days and only because I was stretching the time between episodes. I literally only subscribe to D+ for Marvel content.

Defiant_Wheel48882025-10-07 16:02

Same here bro...

blackbutterfree2025-10-07 07:13

Because Marvel has absolutely no idea what they're doing with their TV shows, much less the animated ones.

I mean, What If went from 23 announced episodes, to two 10-episode seasons planned (reducing it to 20), to a final release schedule of 9-9-8, then I Am Groot shot it all the way down to 5 per season, only for X-Men '97 to go back up to 9, then 10 with Spider-Man, and now 4 each for Eyes of Wakanda and Marvel Zombies.

The inconsistency is amazing.

xdrkcldx2025-10-07 08:47

They don’t have anything to give us. Theyre out of ideas

damodarby2025-10-07 08:49

Quality over quantity. If they don’t need ten episodes to tell the story, I don’t want them spending ten episodes on it. Adding filler to pad out the run time.

dearskorpiomagazine2025-10-07 15:21

Except zombies is a remnant from the quantity over quality era. It was just supposed to be a movie.

CaleBoi252025-10-07 17:49

Though luckily it still was pretty good quality (imo, subject to personal opinion)

dearskorpiomagazine2025-10-07 18:07

I could write an essay on all the things I disliked about it but yes, it's subjective

LaylaLegion2025-10-07 09:40

They’re not. The recent ones are mini-series. They’re not actual shows meant to have long arcs.

usmannaeem2025-10-07 10:02

Because Marvel doesn't want to see fans happy and they are being very cautious of their spending on IP. They are holding back on expanding their franchises across the board at Disney. I hope that changes. and give us more content, I wasn't happy then the streaming service adapted the 8 episode format in the first place. Damn, I love cabletv's 16-20 episode runs.

K1ngofnoth1ng2025-10-07 14:50

There is a difference between mini-series and series…

coaldiamond12025-10-07 16:49

I wouldn't say this is necessarily Marvel's thing, but generally in the streaming age things are shorter because the name of the game is volume, not in episode count but in different shows. Streamers realized that it's more beneficial for them to have a lot of shows than for those shows to have lots of episodes per season (especially in the season drop release method, as you don't have week-to-week ratings and fewer episodes is sometimes better for a binging series).

HappycatAF2025-10-07 16:58

Streaming companies don’t make money based on hours watched, they make money based on adding new subscribers (and keeping existing subscribers).

Some content is made and funded to keep existing subscribers (sequels, second seasons, etc.). Other types of content is made to attract new subscribers. Sometimes they are made for both. The budget for the show gives an idea how the service values the show and what they position it as.

I think a show like Marvel Zombies is meant to attract new subscribers, it’s flashy, different and marketed as non-canon to the MCU so it’s great for casual fans. As such, if the reason is to get people in the door, why spend more money making it a longer season?

Octoberboiy2025-10-07 18:57

To keep existing subscribers like me. I will be canceling my account at the end of the month because there is not enough content to keep me invested.

kbean8262025-10-08 07:15

Under promise, over deliver.

Octoberboiy2025-10-08 07:16

More like over promise under deliver

FlatContribution78332025-10-09 23:43

Should’ve just made it a movie without Spiderman, replaced him with another Avenger, he didn’t really have a massive part in it anyway

Octoberboiy2025-10-10 23:18

Agreed