Head Writer Jessica Gao Was Asked To Scale-Back She-Hulk VFX Scenes & Details Failed ‘Black Widow’ Pitch

This week, Marvel’s launched its latest series, “She-Hulk: Attorney At Law,” a much more comedic riff on their superhero tales. While the early VFX in trailers had audiences worried, by the time the show hit the air, it mainly had hit the mark. Regardless, the VFX continued to be a sticking point for many people and was very much a concern behind the scenes. 

Head writer Jessica Gao recently explained to Variety that when she brought up potential worries, financial or otherwise, to Marvel’s studio head Kevin Feige, he was on board with as much She-Hulk, not Jennifer Walters, as possible. However, as the series got closer to reality, the studio asked her to scale back She-Hulk scenes during the pre-production phase to help ease the volume of VFX shots that would need to be completed and mitigate costs.

READ MORE: ‘She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’ Review: A More Humorous & Hornier Marvel Affair

“I just knew CG was expensive,” she said. “From the beginning, I asked Kevin [Feige], ‘How much can we do? How cost-conscious should I be? Give me some guidelines.’ And he said, ‘If I’m gonna watch a show called ‘She-Hulk,’ I want to see She-Hulk.’ That kind of was the carte blanche to just write it however I wanted. And I remember distinctly thinking, ‘I hope we remember this conversation and the budgets come back, and somebody gets mad at me for it.’”

But as budgets were being made, the tunes changed.

“Once we got into pre-production and production itself, once somebody had to sit down and start figuring out the cost of everything, it was like every week, I was told, ‘Can you cut more She-Hulk scenes? Can you change more She-Hulk scenes to Jen? Can she be Jen in more scenes?’” she continued. “There were a lot of things that then had to be changed at the last minute to go from She-Hulk to Jen. Even in post, you know, we had to cut a lot of shots by virtue just because it was She-Hulk.”

Gao has previously talked about being rejected for other projects at Marvel before landing “She-Hulk,” and she has revealed to The Wrap that one of those projects was the solo “Black Widow” movie. In fact, Gao’s pitch featured Natasha infiltrating a high school to assassinate someone’s dad and then having to show up to the high school reunion, seemingly being her version of “Grosse Pointe Blank,” the John Cusack-led hitman satire from 1997. 

“It was basically a ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ story for Black Widow,” Gao said. “Basically, you find out that in high school, as a teenage spy/Russian agent, she was planted at an American high school because she had to assassinate someone’s dad, and then 20 years later, she goes back to the high school reunion and has to deal with the fallout of this fake identity where she betrayed all these people in high school.”

The failed pitch helped her land “She-Hulk,” so things ended up working out for the writer. Gao added when it clicked for Marvel that she should be writing a She-Hulk project during her chat with Variety, “At one point, I think it was [Marvel executive] Brad Winderbaum who said, ‘It kind of feels like you’re pitching us She-Hulk movie with Black Widow in it.’”

Not exactly a series spoiler, but the big thing in the first end credit scene is that Bruce Banner reveals his pal Steve Rogers lost his virginity during the USO Tour. Many speculate that the young woman played by English actress Laura Haddock asking for Rogers’ autograph stateside during that tour might be a strong contender. Oddly enough, Haddock also played Peter Quill’s mother in “Guardians of The Galaxy.” It’ll be interesting if more oddball factoids like this are utilized in the show and if this mystery woman is revealed. 

The first episode of “She-Hulk” can be streamed right now, with new episodes arriving every Thursday on Disney+.