One positive thing writers have for Marvel Studios is that they can bring characters from other parts of the universe into their project. Although it was a logistical nightmare, She-Hulk has Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Wong (Benedict Wong), and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). While Wong has been a star of Phase 4 and Bruce Banner is the cousin of Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), getting Cox was a process of going through other characters who could have been seen in the show. In an interview with Collider, Jessica Gao (Rick and Morty), the executive producer and lead writer of She-Hulk opened up about Daredevil coming into the Disney Plus series.
“I can’t remember how, we got wind that he was coming back and that it was Charlie Cox, and we were like, ‘Wait, does that mean we can use him? Are we allowed?’ And when they told us yeah, I mean, we couldn’t believe it, we thought we were being pranked.”
As the character became a recent official MCU member, the She-Hulk writer had doubts about Daredevil. The rights could be a challenge of what would be allowed and not. While Marvel had full control over the Netflix characters who are now on Disney Plus, the writing team still had questions about his status. Regardless, they “kept writing him in.”
“We just kept writing him in, and we kept rolling with the story just thinking like, ‘Okay, any moment now they’re going to tell us we can’t use them. They made a mistake. They actually don’t have the rights.’ But it just kept [becoming] more and more real.”
She-Hulk writer on Daredevil coming into series
Rumors circulated about the return of Daredevil in She-Hulk since he is a lawyer, and so is she. Other rumors went around about him coming back with Charlie Cox starring leading up to Spider-Man: No Way Home. Confirmations and his cameo in the latest outing with Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) cemented the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
Navigating the MCU to decide who should make an appearance in She-Hulk, Daredevil was not the first choice as the writer was uncertain that he would be available. She did not name names, but she hinted that others who never made the cut were considered.
“Because everything in the MCU is so interconnected, you just had to know that everything you want to do, there are borders to it, and you have to figure out what the borders are before you can really make any hard decisions. So, you know, sometimes we’d come up with like an idea or a character we wanted to use, but you have to kind of stop and ask to make sure that it wasn’t already been used, or there wasn’t already another plan. And half the time that happened, and you kind of had to scrap everything and start over.”
The other familiar face seen will be Tim Roth returning as Abomination, who was recently seen in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings fighting Wong in an underground fighting ring. Between him, Hulk, Wong, and Daredevil in She-Hulk, it gives it the most established characters in the MCU in a Marvel show. Some have been distant like Moon Knight, while others have had connections with lacking cameos like WandaVision and Loki.
We will see more of Charlie Cox in Echo and his own series, Daredevil: Born Again. The actor will voice the character in Spider-Man: Freshman Year.
She-Hulk releases on August 17 on Disney Plus.