Ostensibly spooked by Ms. Marvel’s awful viewership numbers, Marvel appears to be turning to rely evermore heavily on the one-trick they have left up their sleeve to entice audiences to their productions, as She-Hulk head writer Jessica Gao has promised fans that the upcoming Disney Plus series will feature “a lot of cameos”.
Speaking with Deadline regarding of the Jade Giantess’ solo debut during the recent San Diego Comic-Con, Gao teased that She-Hulk was not only “a lot of fun”, but would also feature “a lot of cameos, and a lot of characters that have never existed in the MCU before that we’re pulling out of the comic books.”
#SheHulk writer Jessica Gao teases Season 1 : “A lot of fun, a lot of cameos, and a lot of characters that have never existed in the MCU before that we’re pulling out of the comic books” #SDCC 2022 pic.twitter.com/s5q37Q7UrC
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) July 24, 2022
However, rather than the series’ purported explosion of Marvel cameos, Gao affirmed that what she was “most excited about is really getting the time and the space to explore this character fully.”
“Because in the Marvel movies, it’s always these high-stakes events—the universe is ending, half the people in the entire existence are getting snapped out,” she explained. “We never really have the time to explore who these people are. What are their regular lives like? And what’s really nice about this is we actually get the time and the space to do that.”
Though Gao provided no specific details on who may show-up on Jen’s doorstep, a new series trailer released during the recent San Diego Comic-Con has confirmed that two such guests will be the Sorcerer Supreme, Wong, and Daredevil.
This blatant promotion of the series on the merits of its multiple cameos – Marvel’s signature gimmick and arguably the one most capable of drawing widespread attention to their productions – suggests Marvel is desperate to spark viewer interest in their next MCU entry.
After all, not only have a number of fans already written off the series thanks to the extremely poor CGI showcased in its first trailer, but, as noted above, the studio’s previous television effort was far from the smash hit they expected it to be.
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As per television data analytics company Samba TV, whose data is aggregated from roughly “24 Smart TV brands from countries around the world” including LG, Sony, and Sharp, Ms. Marvel’s premiere episode was watched by only “775k US households” in its first five days of availability.
These numbers left Ms. Marvel with the worst premiere numbers of any MCU-related television series (save possibly the animated What If…?, as the five-day data for its first episode has not yet been made publicly available).
As per their ‘first five-day’ insights, WandaVision recorded 1.6 Million viewers as it rolled out the scarlet carpet to what would eventually become one of the MCUs most disjointed blunders.
Riding the wave of hype built by its predecessor, Bucky and Sam kicked off The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s world tour in the company of 1.8 Million viewers.
Taking its seat upon the Marvel Disney Plus viewership throne – a position it continues to occupy to this day – Loki then debuted to a record-setting 2.5 Million US households.
The first meeting of Clint Barton and Kate Bishop in Hawkeye was subsequently viewed by 1.5 Million US households, with its second episode likewise managing to keep 1.3 Million of those in the same amount of time.
Meanwhile, the premiere of Moon Knight – the most recent MCU series prior to Ms. Marvel – saw 1.8 Million US households answer Konshu’s call.
Suffice to say, with the combined factors of a dwindling interest in Marvel’s Disney Plus affairs and a lack of fan confidence in what they’ve seen so far, Disney’s distress over She-Hulk’s reception is not unfounded.
She-Hulk hits Disney Plus on August 17th.
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