Two services, three big swings. This week’s Disney+ and Hulu offerings include a buzzed-about tech biopic, Marvel’s first TV-MA animated series and an unflinching crash course in heavy metal history. If you are in the mood for ambitious, adult-leaning storytelling within Disney’s streaming ecosystem, then this is the week to press play.
The headline trio — Swiped, Marvel Zombies and Into the Void: Life, Death and Heavy Metal — also underscores how Disney is leveraging both platforms in concert: Disney+ goes for premium franchises and live medley, while Hulu still holds more down-and-dirty nonfiction fare (and gritty biographical drama). It’s a lineup shaped to hold the attention of genre fans, news junkies and music die-hards in the same package.
Marvel Zombies raises the TV-MA rating bar
Marvel Zombies lands on Disney+ all at once, rather than the franchise’s recent weekly drips. Bryan Andrews directs, and big-screen talent like Paul Rudd, Hailee Steinfeld and Simu Liu provide the voices as first one, then another world is infected by an unholy contagion that turns familiar heroes and villains into something very different.
This is Marvel Animation’s first TV-MA series, a significant leap for a studio that has ventured into darker realms with its storytelling lines but tapped lightly at the adult-content door. The series is based on the 2005 comics run by Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips, as well as the beloved “What If… Zombies?!” episode, but the four-episode storyline delves further into survival, sacrifice and just how far anyone can play by a rulebook with teeth marks all over it.
Look for a tightly coiled, cinematic season instead of a big, sprawling tour of the multiverse. Marvel shows have a habit of marching in and out of Nielsen’s weekly streaming originals rankings, and the TV-MA label here ought to intrigue elder fans who’ve been craving some more daring risks from the cartoon field.
Swiped examines Bumble’s origin story and impact
Hulu’s Swiped is a slick, character-driven take on Whitney Wolfe Herd (Lily James) and the tech, culture and fallout that led to Bumble. A drama directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Swiped follows Wolfe Herd through those early Tinder days to the founding of her women-first dating platform that rethought how online courtship could work as a business.
There’s fertile ground here. “Swipe-to-match” rewired the design of dating apps, and safety-centric features like women-initiated messaging became a competitive advantage. Online dating has almost as much to do with socializing now as it does with procreating, but for various reasons these apps have become entwined in the culture of romance and love.
Swiped sits at the crossroads of tech mythmaking and life as it is actually lived, closer to The Social Network than a glossy founder tribute. Expect the show to tackle topics like harassment moderation, growth-at-all-costs product decisions and how one UX choice can percolate through culture.
Into the Void treats heavy metal seriously — and personally
From the gang over at Dark Side of the Ring — executive producers Evan Husney and Jason Eisener — comes Into the Void: Life, Death and Heavy Metal. This time, that same rigor is applied to the loudest genre on earth. The series, which mixes new interviews and archival footage, retreads nerve centers from the Satanic Panic to the life and legacy of the Plasmatics’ Wendy O. Williams and the onstage murder of Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell.
Just think about the PMRC hearings, or the Judas Priest trial — you know that moral panics helped frame what “metal” meant in the ’80s and ’90s. The docuseries connects those dots to the present, where streaming has flattened gatekeeping but not lowered devotion sky-high — Spotify’s genre-loyalty studies have consistently found that metal listeners are some of music’s most faithful.
The result isn’t just nostalgia. It’s a reminder that extreme music has always been something of a mirror for societal fears and obsessions, and of what happens when the price of spectacle — pyro, persona and all — is brutally real.
Also worth watching on Disney+ and Hulu
Disney+ wraps the week with LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past for something family-friendly, and live competition energy through Dancing with the Stars.
Over at Hulu, new films including Valiant One and The Surfer freshen up the menu alongside reality and doc premieres across crime, fashion and the paranormal.
If you’re mixing profiles, let’s keep in mind that Disney+ content controls are gatekeepers on TV-MA titles, and the bundle’s unified search is stepping up its game in surfacing Hulu picks inside Disney’s app environment. Families can keep the kids in the safe lane while adults veer into zombies and metal without switching service.
Why this slate matters for Disney+, Hulu, and viewers
Disney is also testing the limits of its brands. A TV-MA Marvel animation expands the studio’s tonal range on Disney+, while Hulu remains a park for adult-biased nonfiction and biopics that question real-world power structures. It’s a division of labor that makes the bundle feel wider without watering down what each service stands for.
For viewers at home, the pitch is simple: one week, three unique cultural lenses. A superhero apocalypse with moral texture, an accurate-to-tech founder story, and a music history told by the people who lived the chaos. That is quite a bit of range for one subscription.
