It looks like the idea of the K.E.V.I.N. robot wearing a hat in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law caused a lot more tension than we initially knew about. In fact, the head writer of the series Jessica Gao threatened to quit if she couldn’t do it, and Kevin Feige was actually willing to let her walk away over it!
Here’s what was previously shared about how the whole hat thing came about. When the creative team ended up landing on the idea of K.E.V.I.N. being a robotic A.I. machine for the show, they wanted to give it that classic Kevin Feige accessory. Gao said:
“I wrote in the script that when she sees this big AI machine, it's wearing a little black baseball hat, a classic Kevin Feige-style black baseball hat. When the [visual development team] was showing us different possible sketches of K.E.V.I.N., they were all wearing little hats. No matter what type of robot or machine it was, it was wearing a little black baseball hat on top. [Human] Kevin said, ‘Well, that doesn't make a lick of sense, why would a robot wear a hat?’ I said, ‘That's the part that doesn't make sense to you, Kevin, that is the line of logic that you won't cross, we have you represented as an AI brain that is controlling all of the Marvel Cinematic Universes, but the thing that you can't get past is that it might have a hat on top of the machine?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’”
The creative team eventually got its way with the K.E.V.I.N. robot wearing a hat. But, it came with a compromise: “The hat would actually be incorporated into the robot, instead of just sitting on top of the robot’s head.”
We are now learning that things got a lot more heated and tense over the whole hat thing. Feige really wasn’t a fan of the idea at all. In a recent interview with THR, Gao said:
"In the first draft [of the finale script], I described the robot as an Akira meets a HAL 9000-like AI brain/robot, and the script specifically said that it's wearing a little black baseball cap on top. And real-life Kevin said, 'Well, that doesn't make any sense. Why would a robot wear a hat?'"
"And I said, 'That's the logic issue you have with this, Kevin? And not that [She-Hulk] breaks the ultimate fourth wall, comes to Marvel Studios, fights her way to meet you and you are an actual robot, but it’s the fact that the robot should not be wearing a hat?' And he said, 'Yeah, it doesn't make a lick of sense. So it shouldn't have a hat.'"
She then said that she actually said she would quit if she couldn’t put the hat on the robot’s head, and Feige was happy to let her go her way:
“I was incensed, and in this big meeting, in front of like 20 people, I said, 'Kevin, if you don't let me put a hat on that robot, then I quit.' And then there was a split-second pause, and he just went, 'Thank you very much, Jessica. You've done some great work for us, and we really appreciate everything.'"
Whoa! Thankfully, the head of the show's visual development department came up with a solution to appease both Gao and Feige:
"Jackson Sze, who was head of the vis-dev team and ever the mediator, very gently suggested that they incorporate something into the design of the robot that would make it look like it was wearing a hat, and that was the perfect compromise."
All of this over a stupid hat. Hollywood is crazy. These are the kinds of debates and arguments going on behind closed doors at Marvel Studios! Should a robot of Kevin wear a hat or not? So silly. No one cares about the hat, just give us a great story!
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