A franchise all about the undead getting resurrected after it was thought to have died? I’d love to think Disney’s motivation in bringing back the Zombies movie series was the pleasing irony, but money probably had something to do with it as well.
Yes, after 2022’s Zombies 3 was announced to be the third and final chapter in the smash-hit tween musical franchise, Zombies 4 has now crawled out of its tomb to take fans by surprise. Following in the footsteps — or maybe lumbering in the footsteps is more accurate — of prior Disney Channel film franchises like High School Musical and Descendants, Zombies was enormously successful for the Mouse House network when it premiered in 2018, so it was no surprise when 2020’s Zombies 2 and the aforementioned Zombies 3 came after it.
Starring Meg Donnelly (The Winchesters, James Gunn’s second choice to play Supergirl) and Milo Manheim (Thanksgiving, Dancing with the Stars season 27 runner-up), Zombies is your classic Romeo & Juliet-style “star-crossed teens from different social groups” story, but with the twist being that the boy is a brain-eating corpse. Unlike Descendants 4, which will star a fresh cast, Zombies 4 is set to see Donnelly and Manheim return as Addison and Zed for one more adventure. But when can fans expect it to stagger onto streaming?
Zombies 4 predicted release window, explained
The existence of Zombies 4 was only announced at the Television Critics Association on Feb. 10, 2024, so it’s too early for Disney to have provided a specific release date as yet. However, production details leave us able to make an educated guess over when the fourquel could emerge from its grave.
First of all, Zombies 4 is set to follow Zed, Addison, and their friends Willa the werewolf (Chandler Kinney) and zombie Eliza (Kylee Russell), as they “embark on a road trip the summer after their first year of college. As adventures unfold, they unexpectedly discover the warring worlds of Sunnyside and Shadyside and come into contact with two new groups of monsters.” These new monsters include Nova and Victor, as played by franchise newcomers Freya Skye and Malachi Barton.
The film is due to start shooting in New Zealand this March. Previously, the Zombies movies have shot in the spring and then released the following summer. Based on that, we can assume that Zombies 4 will hit screens in summer 2025. As per the new formula established with Zombies 3, it could well debut on Disney Plus in July 2025 and then make its Disney Channel premiere in August 2025. The good news is, though, that Disney nuts don’t have to wait that long for more Zombies content as Zombies: The Re-Animated Series (cute, Disney, very cute) is due to release in summer 2024.