“She-Hulk” is coming for Disney+ this year — though we still don’t know exactly when — and director Kat Coiro is excited to bring some more humor to the MCU.
Where “Loki,” “WandaVision and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” were more serious, with humor laced in, Coiro can promise that the “She-Hulk” Disney+ series is definitely a bit lighter overall, as early footage has already suggested. But that wasn’t necessarily a driving factor in her decision to direct multiple episodes of the series, which stars Tatiana Maslany as lawyer Jennifer Walters who is transformed when she receives a blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner (played once again by Mark Ruffalo).
“I never choose a project based on genre. And I actually don’t think very much about genre, I think about character,” Coiro explained to TheWrap during the press day for her upcoming film “Marry Me,” which opens in theaters and on Peacock later this week. “And I think about the emotional lives of the characters and, you know, can I bring something? Can I bring a mix of humor and heart to this? Because that is what I love to watch. And it’s what I love to work with. And so when I stepped into, you know, the Marvel playground — the cool thing about Marvel is that it is an ever-evolving universe and you have straight dramas, and you have very comedic films, and we are in that world where we’re definitely playing with a more comedic world, but it also is still part of Marvel land.”
Coiro added that she approached “She-Hulk” (on which she is also an executive producer) the same way she approaches most of her projects. “I would say that I do what I always do, which is really focused on the characters and performance and finding the humor but also grounding it in reality.”
Ironically, Coiro’s first foray into Marvel directly coincided with Owen Wilson’s. The two finished “Marry Me” — with Coiro directing, and Wilson starring opposite Jennifer Lopez — and went straight to their respective Disney lots. But no, the two didn’t trade notes as they went.
“I was so excited,” Coiro said. “So we finished [‘Marry Me’] in 2019, believe it or not. And then he went on to ‘Loki,’ and then I went on to ‘She-Hulk.’ So we were actually on the lot at the same time. And it was really fun. It’s so fun to know that we we were playing in the same universe again, and that’s the coolest thing about Marvel is that it’s this ever-expanding universe. So although we didn’t interact, I feel like we’ve continued to be in each other’s orbits, which I love.”
That said, Coiro wouldn’t give anything up on whether “She-Hulk” will follow the lead of “Loki” and expand past one season.
“I will let Kevin Feige answer that question,” Coiro said with a laugh. “For now, we have done a season and it’s coming out sometime this year. And we’ll go from there.”
“Marry Me” opens in theaters and will be streaming on Peacock on Feb. 11.