There are some Marvel shows, like Hawkeye or Daredevil: Born Again, that seem to be aiming right down the middle in terms of capturing the most attention from Marvel fandom. There are others, like Ms. Marvel or She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, that everyone knows might not be home runs when it comes to pleasing Marvel fans as a whole. According to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, that kind of thing is intentional.
In a recent interview with EW, Feige explained that there are shows he wanted to stand apart from the usual superhero get-the-bad-guy fare. She-Hulk was a great example of this. Feige explains:
“[She-Hulk has] a very different tone than many of other projects have, and that was totally intentional. I think when we are doing about eight projects a year — and again, I said this is going to shift a little bit — they all have to be different. They all have to stand apart and stand alone and be different from one another.”
So how did the idea for She-Hulk come about? Why was it so different? Feige said it just started with one idea: “Let’s just do a legal comedy. What if Ally McBeal was a superhero? How do we do a legal sitcom with an incredibly expensive CG character in the middle of every episode?”
He likened the idea of releasing different types of shows to longevity and comic books.
“It’s like when people go to the comic shops. There’s Spider-Man and the Avengers and the big title ones. And sometimes you pick up a one-off or an experiment from an artist or writer that you’re a fan of. That’s why the comics have been around for 80-plus years, and I want Marvel Studios to be around that long, if not longer.”
This means that not everything is going to be liked by everyone, and Feige said he’s acutely aware of that.
“Does everything have to appeal to everybody? It would be nice. But I think that’s impossible. And if you try to do that, you’re going to find yourself in such a small funnel and pipeline that things will get similar and boring and atrophy very, very quickly.”
This means that while knowing some things aren’t going to be as well received as other things, they still get made. That’s a pretty neat idea coming from one of the biggest companies in the world. It’s nice to know that Marvel isn’t afraid to take chances.