Thanks to several accidental leaks, which came courtesy of official channels, we have recently been privy to several slices of interesting information regarding the upcoming Marvel Disney+ series, She-Hulk. Including when it will air on the streaming platform. Unfortunately, thanks to some backstage insight from former The Hollywood Reporter editor and Puck co-founder Matthew Belloni, there may not be much to be excited about regarding She-Hulk, as the series is reportedly “a mess.”
“The upcoming She-Hulk is supposedly a mess, I’ve heard (even with Mark Ruffalo in a small role), and Ms. Marvel is another big test for fans. Nobody’s saying Marvel’s TV output is in trouble, but it’s something to keep an eye on."
Belloni discussed She-Hulk in the context of Marvel’s Disney+ output, some of which has seemingly been quite divisive. "So Moon Knight generated about half the initial viewership as Hawkeye, and many fans seem to dislike it intensely,” he said of the MCU shows. “I recently discussed the question of whether Marvel has a creative problem on my podcast, The Town, but even from a purely business perspective, Marvel needs to figure out how to generate Avenger-level interest from non-Avenger properties.”
Discussing the viewing numbers, which have been somewhat up-and-down depending on who is leading the series, Belloni explains that the studio needs to find better ways of attracting audiences when presenting characters from outside the likes of The Avengers. This will no doubt be something the studio will certainly need to consider if She-Hulk does indeed turn out to be the mess that Belloni has heard it is.
She-Hulk Could Turn Out to be a Major Miss for Marvel Studios
This is not the first time we have heard negative news from behind-the-scenes of She-Hulk. Earlier this year, The Ankler's Jeff Sneider said of the series: "I've heard not good things behind-the-scenes, and I've asked whether it's Moon Knight or Ms. Marvel or Secret Invasion or any of these [projects], they are always like, 'She-Hulk is the one that could be a problem.' I've heard it from people working on it, from people actually working on it who are just like, 'We'll see.' I think that's a lot of Marvel things, honestly, and you know where it's just like, 'Ugh, this could be really stupid, like we'll see.'"
Of course, these are just whispers through the grapevine, with Sneider admitting that the studio no doubt felt similarly while making the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Which at the time was a massive swing for the MCU. "I'm sure people making Guardians of the Galaxy felt that way, right?" he continued. "And most of the time [Marvel] pulls it out. But there will come a time where they won't, that's just the laws of moviemaking, the laws of numbers."
She-Hulk is a new comedy series from Marvel that “sees Bruce Banner help his cousin, Jennifer Walters, when she needs an emergency blood transfusion and guess what? She receives his powers too,” a leaked synopsis reads. “Tatiana Maslany will play Jennifer, who is a lawyer specialising in superhuman-oriented legal cases. Mark Ruffalo is back as the Hulk alongside Tim Roth, who plays the Abomination."
She-Hulk will land on Disney+ on August 17, 2022.