What does She-Hulk’s Rotten Tomatoes score mean for the show’s future?

By Kieran Burt
Published: November 5, 2022
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This article discusses She-Hulk’s low score on Rotten Tomatoes and if the negative reception it’s garnered will have an effect on the show’s future. Spoilers for She-Hulk are below.

She-Hulk wrapped on Disney+ only a few weeks ago with its disappointing finale, taking a hugely unnecessary and confusing swerve into madness, abandoning the show it had built itself to be, and wrapping everything up without any consequence. The show itself was painfully unfunny, with a particularly cringy moment of She-Hulk twerking with Megan Thee Stallion. But the show wasn’t completely dull, with Daredevil’s and Wong’s appearances being the most enjoyable episodes.

Fans have largely given the show a negative rating, especially on review aggregate platforms like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Metacritic. With such negative reviews, there are questions about how this will affect She-Hulk’s future.

Why does the Rotten Tomatoes score matter for She-Hulk?

Rotten Tomatoes is a hugely influential website when it comes to reviews. The site doesn’t post reviews itself but collects reviews from certified critics and allows users to post their own scores. It averages them out, gives rotten, fresh, or certified fresh ratings for critics’ scores, and shows popcorn for audience scores.

This helps to give an indication of the general feelings surrounding a project and can help fans determine the word of mouth about a particular film or TV show. These ratings are especially important in the movie industry, with bad ratings being linked to bad box office performances, with exceptions, of course. Early reactions set the conversation for the film and help set overall expectations.

Studios and actors have occasionally blamed Rotten Tomatoes for bad reception. The movie Gotti infamously weaponized the critics versus fans’ sentiment in their marketing campaign in response to a 0% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is also someone who has commented on the poor critical reception of his films. When Baywatch moved up to an 18% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Johnson complained about the “glaring disconnect” between critics and fans, who Johnson said “love” the film.

More recently, another Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson film has been showing the importance of fan scores. Black Adam currently sits at a 40% critics rating but at a 90% audience score. This high audience score has been replicated in the strong box office performance the film has enjoyed, along with strong word of mouth.

She-Hulk has had the reverse happen to it, with critics’ scores overwhelmingly outweighing audience scores. Here, the audience can drown out the sound of critics and cause a show to lose steam as it goes on.

What is the She-Hulk Rotten Tomatoes score?

She-Hulk received the worst Rotten Tomatoes audience score in all of Marvel’s live-action television, with a 33% rating. Even the widely panned Inhumans beats She-Hulk by eight points, as it’s on a 41% rating. Critics have reviewed the show much more favorably at 85%, though this is still lower than the other two MCU Disney+ series that came out this year, Moon Knight, at 86%, and Ms. Marvel, at 97%.

When comparing the She-Hulk audience’s score to Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk shows a precipitous drop in ratings. Moon Knight achieved 89%, and Ms. Marvel got a still impressive 80%.

This dramatic drop in ratings would suggest the show was review bombed, which would make sense considering some of the surrounding conversations about the show. A lot of people were complaining about the show’s “woke” politics, and while the show’s comments about men weren’t subtle, many people seemed to take offense at this.

Unfortunately, review bombing isn’t new for Marvel, with prior films and TV shows facing similar bombers, especially against other diverse projects like Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel.

This isn’t to say these were the only people to dislike the show, as there are many people who found it to be unfunny, and the fourth wall breaks immersion breaking.

What does She-Hulk’s Rotten Tomatoes score mean for the series?

Marvel might try and ignore the harsh rating, especially as some of it is from review bombers. But it’s likely these criticisms will influence the decision-making for the series in pretty major ways.

The most obvious impact is on a second season. While the last episode of She-Hulk dropped a sizeable hint about a second season, with Marvel’s full schedule, this probably won’t happen any time soon. But these negative reviews signal that there isn’t fan interest in a season two, so Marvel won’t be looking to fast-track it.

These negative reactions might kill a season two outright, with She-Hulk being relegated to a secondary character. A similar outcome affected Captain Marvel. It received a similarly disastrous audience score of 45%, and this would have factored into the minds of Marvel into turning Captain Marvel’s second film, The Marvels, into a team-up film. This lets Marvel keep Captain Marvel in the picture but avoids some of the fan controversies of a second outing that is likely it be disliked.

This might happen to She-Hulk, where instead of getting a second season, the character appears in other MCU series and films. This would get past some of the negativity surrounding She-Hulk, and let the writers keep some of the key parts of the character, such as the fourth wall breaking and maintaining some activism.

Daredevil: Born Again is the obvious place for She-Hulk to pop up, as she and Matt Murdock started a relationship in She-Hulk. Another possible candidate might be Captain America: New World Order, as it’s already confirmed to feature the Hulk villain, The Leader, as its primary antagonist.

A potential for She-Hulk to appear is in a much-rumored World War Hulk project. She-Hulk itself teased the project by bringing in Hulk’s son Skaar, who in the comics debuts in the World War Hulk storyline. While Marvel has dropped several hints about World War Hulk, there hasn’t been any confirmation yet.

Another possibility is that Marvel might not include She-Hulk in any projects going forward. But this is unlikely, as Marvel will try to give the character a second chance before forgetting about her completely. Characters from the less popular Marvel film The Incredible Hulk have made their return, with Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, Abomination, and soon-to-be The Leader all coming back despite their unpopular origins.

How did She-Hulk do on IMDb and Metacritic?

She-Hulk had a similarly bad audience score on Metacritic, receiving a measly average of 3.2 out of 10. Critics gave the show a lower score than Rotten Tomatoes, with 67 overall, but this is because Metacritic has a smaller pool of critics to pull from. It’s the lowest-rated Marvel live-action TV project on the website by audiences and by quite a margin. The next nearest MCU project is Falcon and the Winter Soldier at 5.6, nearly over 2.5 points higher.

IMDb doesn’t give a separate score for critics and audiences, only a rating out of ten. She-Hulk performed the best here, getting an average of 5.1/10. This actually isn’t the worst a Marvel show has done on the website, with Inhumans garnering an average of 4.9. But as far as the MCU Disney+ shows go, it is the worst, with Ms. Marvel (another show that was heavily review bombed on IMDb), coming in at an average rating of 6.2.

No matter whether you look at Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, or IMDb, She-Hulk wasn’t well received.  And while some of it was due to review bombers acting out against the show’s politics, there is also an element of the fanbase that legitimately didn’t like it.

You can watch She-Hulk with a subscription to Disney+.

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