As sprawling and interconnected as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become, there remains one ever-present reminder that this franchise is subject to the whims of business decisions and rights issues. The partnership between Sony and Marvel has led to a (mostly) amicable arrangement that culminated with the mind-bogglingly successful “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” But similar instances have also prevented certain characters from living up to their full big-screen potential, such as the Hulk not receiving a solo film since the 2008 Universal Pictures-produced “The Incredible Hulk” or the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four remaining under the now-defunct 20th Century Fox until the Disney merger. 

“She-Hulk” creator Jennifer Gao alludes to these complications later on in the same interview, explaining why many other potential cameos simply couldn’t happen. Some of it has to do with rights complications, but others were scuttled because of Marvel’s vague plans for the future.

“There were a lot of characters from the comics -– we wanted a lot of the comics for characters for fun situations where we could bring in a character and think of like funny reasons why they would be in legal trouble. But there were a lot of characters that were from the comics that we couldn’t use either because of a rights issue, or there were a few times where it was because Marvel … all they would say is that they had other plans. And that’s all they would tell us. And then, we tried very, very hard to poke, and prod, and get a little bit more information. Of course, they wouldn’t tell us.”

“She-Hulk” remains just one small piece of a much larger puzzle and will debut on Disney+ Thursday, August 18, 2022.