'She-Hulk' Pitch

I really like She-Hulk. I think she’s a really fun and unique character. She has way more personality than you would expect from a character originally created to stop the 70s TV show at the time from making a spinoff. I recently started reading and collecting John Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk run, and I really got into it. So, logically, I came up with a pitch for a She-Hulk movie.

But then, even more recently, Disney announced plans for a She-Hulk series, which I was not expecting so soon. Originally, I was planning on finishing the John Byrne run—and maybe reading the Charles Soule run, as well—before fleshing out my pitch into more of a treatment. But, with the news of the upcoming show, I no longer think my idea would work.

So here’s my pitch, and why it will likely never be made.

The two things that I find most interesting about She-Hulk are that she is a lawyer, and that she can break the fourth wall (years before Deadpool ever came around). I’ve always liked courtroom dramas, and the concept of a lawyer working in the Marvel Universe is really cool. Also, the way John Byrne breaks the fourth wall is really creative and hilarious. She-Hulk will often get into arguments with Byrne, or jump across panels to save time.

Oh, yeah, also, the movie rights for She-Hulk were up in the air for a while, since Universal still owns the movie rights to Hulk and related characters, as well as Namor, and maybe a couple others. This is why we haven’t seen a stand-alone Hulk movie since the Edward Norton one, because Universal has refused to work with Marvel Studios thus far.

So, my pitch for a She-Hulk movie is that it would be about Marvel Studios hiring Jessica Walters, She-Hulk, to argue the case against Universal Studios allowing Marvel to make a She-Hulk movie. It is a very meta, very fun concept that can never be made. Number one—you would have to get both Marvel and Universal to agree to make this movie, and they already seem to have trouble agreeing to make anything. And, number two—it directly makes Universal the bad guy, so there is no way they would want to be a part of it. Also, the fact that they have announced this show means that Marvel has already figured out whatever legal issues they had with Universal.

I would’ve liked to flesh it out more, but I don’t think there is much point in doing that now, though I still think it would’ve been fun. Through the court case, we would get to see elements of She-Hulk’s origin, nonlinearly, kind of like in The Social Network. There would also be this fun scene where she first gets her powers, discovers that she’s in a movie, and then runs off set, Mel Brooks-style.

There would also be another sequence where the canonicity of The Incredible Hulk is in question, and so She-Hulk brings the Blu-Ray of the movie into evidence. Then, they have a debate about how Mark Ruffalo took over from Edward Norton, but William Hurt came back for Civil War. I don’t know; I think it would’ve been fun. And, there are a lot of interesting and fresh stuff you could do with She-Hulk as a character. I think it would be amazing if they brought back Charlie Cox as Matt Murdoch, and have him be the opposing lawyer in a case, like in the Charles Soule run.

Either way, I’m still really curious to see what they do with the character, and I think this is the first Disney+ show that I’m actually excited for.