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Marvel has high hopes for new 'Incredible Hulk' film
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 2, 2008 by Brooks Barnes New York Times News Service
LOS ANGELES -- Bad buzz. Creative infighting. Superhero gridlock at the multiplex. For Marvel Studios, handling gamma rays is starting to look like a cakewalk compared to turning "The Incredible Hulk" into a movie franchise.
The unjolly green giant, born from a botched gamma bomb experiment in a 1962 comic book, belongs to an elite class of superhero. In Marvel's stable of characters, which includes the X- Men and the Silver Surfer, only Spider-Man outsells him. The Hulk, along with his emotionally withdrawn alter ego, Dr. Bruce Banner, has spawned television shows, theme-park rides and best-selling toys.
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But big-screen glory has eluded him. In 2003, "Hulk," a pricey attempt to give the monster a Spidey-size movie career, flopped after the director Ang Lee's artsy creature was ridiculed as Gumbyesque. That picture, which cost $150 million to make, sold a disappointing $132 million in tickets in North America and made less overseas.
Now Marvel is attempting what it openly calls a do-over. Starring Edward Norton, "The Incredible Hulk," set for a June 13 release, will serve up more action (Hulk battles a new creature called Abomination) and more female-friendly themes. (Banner is madly in love.) The monster was mute in Lee's film, but this one speaks, a nod to the campy 1978-82 television series that starred Bill Bixby and the bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno (resplendent in green body paint).
Marvel and its distribution partner, Universal Pictures, expect "The Incredible Hulk" to be nothing short of a blockbuster, citing strong sales for a newly introduced "Hulk" comic book series as one reason for optimism.
"We are really proud about how the new film came out," said David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios. "The 2003 movie was like test- driving a car. We were able to see what people liked and did not." But signs of trouble abound, leading to lip-biting among some Marvel investors, Hulk fans and movie theater owners. "There are people who clearly don't think it looks good and are expecting a bomb," said Doug Creutz, an entertainment analyst at Cowan & Co.
The trailer, engineered to vanquish memories of the 2003 film, arrived last month and instantly polarized the comic book crowd. The look of the new Hulk -- meaner and greener -- won praise from some fans online, but several influential tastemakers held their noses.
Entertainment Weekly pronounced the computer-generated effects "totally fake-looking," while obsessedwithfilm.com deemed the project "just hideous."
And then there's the bickering among the creative team.
Norton and Marvel, which has the right of final approval on the film, have sparred in recent weeks over trims, among other issues, said studio executives involved, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Norton -- who was hired to rewrite the script along with playing the lead -- has made it clear he won't cooperate with publicity plans if he's not happy with the final product, these people said.
A spokeswoman for Norton said he had no comment. Maisel brushed off the friction as par for the course.
"When you get to this point in the process, there are always lots of passionate discussions," he said. "Edward is very passionate. He is as passionate about the Hulk as we are." (For those unaccustomed to Hollywood speak, "very passionate" roughly translates to a seven on the "he's a difficult person" scale.)
Even if everything was running smoothly, "The Incredible Hulk," which has a budget of about $150 million, would probably be having a difficult time generating excitement. With studios in hot pursuit of franchises, superheroes are booked elbow to elbow at the summer multiplex. Seven movies built around larger-than-life characters will vie for attention between May and August, including Batman's latest adventures ("The Dark Knight") and "Hancock," which stars Will Smith as a misanthropic superhero. "Iron Man," with Robert Downey Jr. as a wealthy industrialist who builds an armored suit, arrives in May from Marvel and Paramount.
Even Stan Lee, a creator of the Hulk and Iron Man characters, seems under-enthused about the prospects of his green baby. "My prediction is that it will be more popular than the last one," he said. His "Iron Man" prediction? "Enormous hit," he said.
Universal Pictures, which will distribute and market "The Incredible Hulk," bristles at the notion that the monster needs CPR. "I would caution anybody against betting against it," said Adam Fogelson, Universal's president for marketing and distribution.
Fogelson said the trailer for "The Incredible Hulk" had generated more streams online than any previous Universal trailer. He also said the movie had the largest number of licensing and promotional partners of any Universal project in 2008, although he would not name any.
Universal noted that Norton's Hulk, according to a recent poll on the ticket-selling Web site Fandango, is the fourth "most anticipated new character portrayal" of the summer. (Overall the movie ranked as the seventh "most anticipated summer 2008" movie.)
