The year was 2022 and Marvel Studios was about to deliver a horde of new content on both the big and small screens. After successfully launching its Multiverse Saga in 2021 with a heap of new Disney Plus shows that brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe new critical and commercial wins (WandaVision and Loki being the big ones), the-powers-that-be were ready to do it again. But year 2 would unfortunately highlight some of the shortcomings of that very approach. And one show that suffered because of this was She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.
Easily one of the most anticipated MCU shows before its debut, She-Hulk starred Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters, attorney at law, and Bruce Banner's quirky cousin. When an accident leads to her also becoming a Hulk, absolute chaos ensues - which allowed the show to lean heavily into the sitcom format. And as it remains one of the only Marvel shows on Disney Plus to actually attempt to be a TV show, one would think that it would be praised for that. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.
Throughout its run, She-Hulk was treated unfairly by those who wanted more from a sitcom set within the MCU. While there were some genuine critiques in there - and some fair ones too - a lot of undeserved hate was directed at the show, too. And, in spite of the buzz that it generated, a second season never materialized. That is incredibly frustrating - because its inevitable cancellation reportedly came about for such an obvious reason... one that Marvel should have been able to avoid.
She-Hulk's massive budget set it up for failure (even though it performed well)
There is a false narrative running around on the internet that She-Hulk: Attorney At Law wasn't successful. This is simply untrue, as according to Marvel Studios' own Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation, Brad Winderbaum, it was actually one of the best-performing Marvel shows on the Disney Plus platform. It was the review-bombing and subsequent directionless of the overall Multiverse Saga that created the fallacy that "nobody wanted" the show, which couldn't have been further from the truth.
Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to save it because - despite She-Hulk's streaming success - it was too expensive for Marvel Studios to sustain a weekly series. Tatiana Maslany herself alluded to this when she confirmed that Disney Plus had no plans for She-Hulk season 2, responding to a fan question with a rather direct: "I don’t think so... I think we blew our budget, and Disney was like, ‘no thanks!"
Therefore, it was quietly cancelled after the first season, with the studio rarely acknowledging its existence since 2022. And that is pretty darn frustrating... because we all could have seen that coming.
While we can give Marvel credit for allowing She-Hulk to actually be a sitcom, it doesn't change the fact that it was still budgeted like a massive Marvel movie. According to reports, the series had a price tag of around $225 million, with each episode costing roughly $25 million due to the heavy special effects that were required to bring the Jade Giantess to life. This ultimately set the show up to fail because, no matter how successful it had been, it would never have been able to justify that budget simply because it wasn't a theatrical release.
Although streaming television has very quickly become a parallel form of entertainment to movies, they simply don't make money in the same way that a film would. Therefore, in order for a show to justify a massive $200+ million budget, it would need to be a massive breakout phenomenon like Netflix's Stranger Things, Lucasfilm's The Mandalorian, and even Marvel's own Loki. She-Hulk, as a half-hour legal comedy, was never expected to do those kinds of numbers, so why was it put in a position in which it had to?
Despite the fact that the show performed well for Disney Plus and likely resulted in more subscriptions to the streamer during those particular release months (as Marvel Studios shows generally do), it simply couldn't pull off the ridiculous expectations that were quietly placed on it. And a sitcom being budgeted like a blockbuster doomed it from the start, because the "nothing really happens" complaints were inevitable - even though comedies tend to focus more on episodic adventures over overall narrative. Doing that - while also having big-budget CGI - was a risk for sure, but as Marvel actually committed to that risk, it's unfortunate that they seemingly cut it loose regardless.
This is more of a reflection of both this streaming era of television and Marvel Studios' overenthusiastic plans to expand the MCU via the Multiverse Saga's abundance of Disney Plus shows. The studio eventually realized the flaws in this method, as not every show needed a massive budget, nor did it need to tie directly into the overall events of the MCU. They worked this out beautifully with Agatha All Along, which earned critical acclaim, increased its viewership on a weekly basis and picked up some major award nominations too. As the cheapest Marvel show ever (with a reported budget of less than $40 million), it proved to be a huge return on investment - once again highlighting that She-Hulk's chances of ROI were extremely low on that massive budget.
She-Hulk has unfortunately born the brunt of a problem we all saw coming. Not every show has to perform on the level of Loki or The Mandalorian to be considered a success but with She-Hulk having the budget that it did, it needed to. And that is, again, one of the biggest issues with streaming: There is very little room for mid-tier, moderate, or even solid successes. It's phenomenon or bust.
So, in the case of She-Hulk, a show can do exactly what is expected of it and still be judged for it. It goes without saying that the show deserved better than that.
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is now streaming on Disney Plus.
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