Is It Possible ‘Hulk’ 2008 Could Do Worse Than ‘Hulk’ 2003?
Bad buzz makes its way even to the New York Times
I thought this was an odd place for the status of Universal’s The Incredible Hulk to be questioned, but I’ll take it. The New York Times has posted an article titled “What’s Big and Green, and Desperate to Be a Hit All Over?” that opens with a gut shot to Hulk-hopefuls:
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 article then carries quotes from the likes of Stan Lee who sounds less than enthused saying, “My prediction is that it will be more popular than the last one,” while at the same time saying Paramount’s Iron Man will be an “enormous hit.”
Bad buzz refers to the late arriving trailer as several fans weren’t too impressed. Personally I avoided watching it with hopes of going in as fresh as I possible could. Then there are the talks of fighting going on between star/screenwriter Ed Norton and the producer types.
Mr. 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. Mr. 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.
Universal’s marketing prez goes on to say how the Hulk trailer generated more streams online than any previous Universal trailer (big deal) and how the film has the largest number of licensing and promotional partners of any Universal project in 2008 (duh). These aren’t earth shattering details.
One thing I thought was interesting were the details on how the 2008 Hulk will be different than the 2003 Hulk.
- This time Hulk will be a uniformed 9 feet tall and will not vary in size based on his anger level.
- The film will lay down Bruce Banner’s loser tendencies and portray him as more of a hero
- The new movie will stick closer to the television show (whatever that means).
- Banner’s eyes glow bright green when he starts to get angry.
My problem with all of this, and something I would have thought Universal would have already picked up on, is that the comic book fans are going to turn out no matter what. It’s the general audiences that need to be impressed. Comic fans are certainly more likely to nit pick things such as the size of the Hulk (I never noticed that) or whether or not Banner’s eyes glow green. However, general audiences are just going to want a good movie.
Take Ghost Rider for example. Ghost Rider is an awful movie and anyone that says otherwise I would never take their opinion on the quality of a film. Ghost Rider ended up making $115 million at the box-office. Main reason being comic book fan support. And who can blame them? They want to see a guy with a flaming skull riding around on a motorcycle, and they got it. However, had the film actually been good that number could have easily swelled to $200 million.
The biggest question is how good the new Hulk will be. The first film scored a 61% at RottenTomatoes and earned north of $132 million domestically. I would say if the new flick comes up short of $150 million Ang Lee’s Hulk wins, something I am sure Universal desperately does not want to happen.
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