She-Hulk: Lawyer Editor Jessica Gao revealed that several sequences featuring the title character had to be cut to stay within the Marvel series’ VFX budget.
Of all of Marvel’s Dinsey Plus series so far, She-Hulk is perhaps the most VFX-intensive, with a protagonist spending much of their time as an all-CG character. Delivering a television series that revolves around such a character is obviously going to come with a lot of budgetary challenges.
Jessica Gao has revealed that several plans had to be scrapped, or entire scenes had to have Tatiana Maslany swap She-Hulk for her human alter ego, Jennifer Walters, in order to maintain the Disney Plus series’ budget.
Jessica Gao recently spoke to Variety about writing and directing She-Hulk: Lawyerrevealing the changes that had to be implemented due to the series’ VFX budget.
The head writer says Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige told him not to hold back She-Hulk appearances when writing the script because he didn’t want the show to fall short of the promise of his title. However, several She-Hulk moments had to be cut when budget became a factor.
Talking about how many She-Hulk: Lawyer needed to be changed, Jessica Gao said:
“I just knew CG was expensive. From the start, 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 going to watch a show called She-Hulk, I want to see She-Hulk.” It was sort of carte blanche to write it the way I wanted. And I distinctly remember thinking, “I hope we remember this conversation and budgets come back and someone gets mad at me for this.”…
“Once we got into pre-production and production itself, once someone had to sit down and start costing everything, it was like every week I was said, “Can you cut more scenes from She-Hulk? Can you change more scenes from She-Hulk to Jen? Can she be Jen in more scenes? 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 just because it was She-Hulk.
Obviously, even for a blockbuster machine like Marvel, producing an entire TV series that relies on near-constant visual effects is an expensive business, and budgets have to be adhered to. However, if the first reviews of She-Hulk are any indication the series has not been hampered by these changes.
Here is the synopsis of She-Hulk: Lawyer:
“She-Hulk: Attorney at Law follows Jennifer Walters as she navigates the complicated life of a single thirty-something lawyer who also happens to be a 6-foot-7 green superpowered hulk.”
The series stars Tatiana Maslany, Mark Ruffalo, Tim Roth, Benedict Wong, Ginger Gonzaga, Josh Segarra, Jameela Jamil, Jon Bass and Renée Elise Goldsberry.
She-Hulk: Lawyer premieres August 18 on Disney Plus. Stay tuned for all the latest news on the upcoming series and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.
Source: Variety
