Scrapped She-Hulk Plans Included Meta Comic Book Text Boxes On-Screen

Courtesy of Disney+ Hotstar, we were lucky enough to participate in a She-Hulk press conference featuring Tatiana Maslany (who plays Jennifer Walters AKA She-Hulk), Ginger Gonzaga (who plays She-Hulk’s friend, Nikki), She-Hulk director Kat Coiro, and She-Hulk head writer/executive producer Jessica Gao.

During the press conference, somebody asked how She-Hulk’s breaking-the-fourth-wall meta elements were unique. In the series, Jennifer Walters would break the fourth wall by stopping and talking to the screen as if she were speaking to viewers or someone behind the scenes.

Jessica Gao revealed that earlier plans for She-Hulk included even more meta elements like actual comic book-like text boxes (like Editor’s Notes found in comics) appearing on-screen and Jennifer Walters interacting with them.

Kat Coiro started by replying to the question with:

“Well, I like to say that she was doing it well before Deadpool or Fleabag.”

Jessica Gao then continued by saying:

“I mean, it’s true. If you know anything about She-Hulk the character, you would know that. We really went through a lot of evolutionary steps, a long journey of how much she should talk to the camera, is she talking directly to the audience, is there another meta element, is she talking to somebody else that’s more behind the scenes, you know.

At one point, there was an iteration in the scripts where, instead of talking directly to the camera, there were kinds of text boxes that were editor’s notes like in the comic books, how there were editor’s notes in comics. She was actually interacting with the editor’s notes that would be on-screen.

We did eventually scrap that idea but we went through a lot of different versions of how she would do it.” 

Stay tuned for more coverage on She-Hulk. She-Hulk will premiere on Disney+ Hotstar on 18 August 2022.

In the meantime, check out the trailer below: