She-Hulk original pitch featured a multi-episode trial for Abomination

She-Hulk head writer Jessica Gao has revealed more about her first pitch for the Marvel show – and it would have featured a big role for Tim Roth's Abomination. The show stars Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters, cousin of Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner, who develops powers of her own after an accidental blood transfusion. 

"My pitch for the show is pretty close to the show that you're watching. All the kind of key foundational elements were there: Emil Blonsky/Abomination was always in the pitch," Gao told Variety. "Bruce was always in the pitch. I didn't know if I could use them. I didn't know what their relationship was to Abomination anymore. But I thought, you know what? This is what I want – so I'll just pitch it. Thankfully, they liked all of it."

She continued: "When I went in, it definitely skewed a lot more heavily towards Blonsky's trial. In my original pitch, it was an actual trial and it spanned multiple episodes. When we got into the writers' room, inevitably things change as you're developing the show and as you start writing. And one thing that we all realized very slowly was none of us are that adept at writing, you know, rousing trial scenes."

Roth first played Abomination opposite Edward Norton's Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk, but reappeared in the MCU in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, alongside Benedict Wong's Wong. Wong and Abomination both feature in She-Hulk – and the rest of the cast includes Jameela Jamil as Titania, Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki Ramos, and Charlie Cox as Daredevil. 

She-Hulk drops its first episode on Disney Plus this August 18, and you can see our She-Hulk release schedule to find out exactly when each episode arrives in your time zone. In the meantime, check out our roundup of all the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows for everything else the MCU has in store for us.