She-Hulk Finale Director Kat Coiro Originally Wanted Kevin Feige To Voice K.E.V.I.N. [Exclusive]
It's fitting that "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" ends on a dramatically novel note unlike anything Marvel has tried before. The fourth-wall-breaking series builds up to a teased high-spectacle battle between She-Hulk, Titania, the Abomination, and the Hulk, before Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) takes over and, in her wink-to-the-audience fashion, cancels the fight. Instead she gets meta with it, charging into Marvel Studios' writer's room and making her way to Marvel's supposed She-Hulk shot-caller, the AI-powered robot K.E.V.I.N., a humorous stand-in for real-life Marvel head Kevin Feige.
The series originally had a much more traditional finale, with head writer Jessica Gao penning multiple versions of a finale and concluding with a "big villain fight, big finale" ending. Kevin Feige himself intervened and convinced her that the series was different from everything Marvel's done, and therefore it could get away with the more novel ending. In a new /Film interview, director Kat Coiro reveals that they had even tried to persuade Feige to voice his fictionalized robotic stand-in, and they discovered that his support of the show's new conclusion had one important limit.
Feige would do anything for She-Hulk, but he won't do that
In the interview, Coiro was asked if there was ever any desire for Feige himself to appear, or whether the robot was the plan from square one. "I think he was always supposed to be a robot brain," Coiro told us. The K.E.V.I.N. robot may have emerged out of these discussions with the real Feige, but it was always intended to be the fictional AI-powered story shaper instead of Marvel's real-life shot-caller.
Coiro explains that while K.E.V.I.N. was supposed to be robotic, "there was a hope that [Feige] would lend his voice to the robot," adding an extra layer of humorous realism behind the in-world Marvel AI. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. "That was not something he was interested in," Coiro explains. Feige may have been supportive of Jennifer Walters meeting and challenging K.E.V.I.N., but the show's creative minds were unable to persuade him to provide the robot's actual voice.
Coiro concludes by noting that it may be for the best that Feige didn't voice K.E.V.I.N.: "I think it actually makes a lot more sense as a real robot anyway, because Kevin Feige and K.E.V.I.N. are two different entities." While the AI-powered being may be inspired by Kevin Feige in a She-Hulk wink-and-a-nod way, they're distinct beings, and though we may not see K.E.V.I.N. again, Feige is going nowhere.