She-Hulk’s size was reduced due to studio meddling, says VFX artist

The first teaser trailer for She-Hulk dropped earlier this week, revealing how Tatiana Maslany’s green-skinned heroine will appear in the Disney Plus series. Unfortunately, the character’s CGI look has gone down online about as well as the ice cream song from Doctor Strange 2. On top of the general uncanny quality of Jennifer Walters’ Shulkie form, which looked closer to The Rock in The Mummy Returns than we were expecting, fans are also disappointed at her size.

A lot of folks have shared their dismay on social media at how relatively small the MCU’s She-Hulk is in comparison to the comics. Sure, she’s still plenty tall and muscular — as shown in what the internet is affectionally dubbing the trailer’s “snu-snu” moment — but shots of Jen next to her hulked-out cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) make clear that she’s significantly less buff. So what’s going on here?

VFX artist Sean Ruecroft has now seemingly revealed the frustrating truth behind the Shulkie CGI situation. According to a tweet they made in response to a fan lamenting She-Hulk’s size, Ruecroft alleged that Marvel executives forced the VFX team to keep on reducing Jen’s stature and muscle tone from what was originally envisioned.

“I was at a company that did VFX for this,” Ruecroft claimed. “Apparently she was bigger early on, but the notes kept saying to “make her smaller.” We always roll our eyes (like we did on Sonic) but at the end of the day artists gotta follow orders.”

This isn’t the first time that She-Hulk has been compared to Sonic the Hedgehog, which infamously also delivered some awful CGI in its first trailer. In the case of that Paramount movie, of course, the production team ended up completely revising its depiction of Sonic in the face of the backlash. It’s unclear if Marvel is going to do the same with this series. However, it seems likely that the She-Hulk design will at least be given a polish as the VFX definitely seemed unfinished in the teaser.

Ruffalo’s Hulk design has evolved throughout his MCU career, so here’s hoping the same is true of his cuz. Expect She-Hulk to smash onto Disney Plus in a few months’ time on August 17.