For She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, It Was “Spider-Man: No Way Whatsoever”

Officially, we are now down to less than a week until Marvel Studios & Disney+’s Tatiana Maslany-starring She-Hulk: Attorney at Law hits our screens. And as one of the MCU shows on the horizon that we’ve been looking forward to, we can’t wait. With Maslany’s Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, representing superhero-related legal work, fans were expecting guest appearances from across the MCU (Mark Ruffalo‘s Bruce Banner/Smart Hulk, Tim Roth‘s Emil Blonsky/The Abomination, Charlie Cox‘s Mat Murdock/Daredevil, and Jameela Jamil‘s Titania are just some of the names we know). But in a recent interview, series head writer Jessica Gao shared that they went after a number of MCU characters to appear only to be told they couldn’t “because of a rights issue” or that Marvel Studios “had other plans” for the character. And that included Spider-Man and the Spider-Man universe of characters, though Sony and Disney have cooperated in the past on the film side.

“There were a lot of characters from the comics– we wanted a lot of the comics for characters for fun situations where we could bring in like a character and think of like funny reasons why they would be in legal trouble. But there were a lot of characters that were from the comics that we couldn’t use either because of a rights issue, or there were a few times where it was because Marvel… all they would say is that they had other plans,” Gao revealed during an interview with The Direct. “And that’s all they would tell us. And then, we tried very, very hard to poke and prod and get a little bit more information. Of course, they wouldn’t tell us.” Of course, a response like that begs for a follow-up, with Gao offering our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler as an example of a character they were “bummed” about not being able to have in their creative sandbox. “I will say, the one MCU character that really bummed out a lot of the writers in our room that we couldn’t use was Spider-Man and anyone involved around– like in the Spider-Man universe. Because we had so many Spider-Man fans in the room.”

Here’s a look back at the date announcement teaser confirming the date change to Thursdays moving forward:

And just in case you need a reminder about the two official trailers that were previously released (along with a series overview)… with Disney+’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law premiering on August 18th:

“She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” follows Jennifer Walters as she navigates the complicated life of a single, 30-something attorney who also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch superpowered hulk.

Joining Maslany in the Marvel Studios & Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is Jameela Jamil as Titania, a Marvel supervillain with incredible strength and a frequent rival of Jennifer’s, Ginger Gonzaga (Kidding) as Walters’ best friend, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Josh Segarra, Jon Bass, Anais Almonte, Nicholas Cirillo, and Griffin Matthews. In addition, Mark Ruffalo reprises his role as Bruce Banner/Smart Hulk, Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs) returns as Emil Blonsky, aka The Abomination, and Benedict Wong returns as Wong. Emmy award-winner Jessica Gao (Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty) leads the writers’ room & executive produces, with Kat Coiro executive producing and directing the pilot & additional episodes (E02-E04; E08; E09) of the legal comedy along with Anu Valia (E05-E07). Coiro, Gao, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, and Brad Winderbaum executive produce, with Wendy Jacobson & Jennifer Booth co-executive producing.