The New York Times has got a great little feature on all the drama surrounding the “The Incredible Hulk” reboot film that Marvel is producing themselves and things are not looking good for the second go-round of the expensive comic-book adaptation.
Is the Hulk character cursed? As the Gray Lady noted, the film has bad buzz (the CGI looks like shit, the trailer was picked apart by nerds who normally eat this shit up like free Sundaes), there’s been lots of public in-fighting (Edward Scissorhands Norton is trying to impress his sway upon the hapless director) and what they’re calling “Superhero gridlock” at the box office (“Iron Man,” “The Dark Knight” and “Hancock” which stars Will Smith as an unsociable superhero all arrive this summer).
Obviously, Ang Lee’s version bombed and with good reason (you are doomed if you try and argue this point), it was dreadful for any movie, not even by lowered comic-book standards and was cartoonish in every bad connotation imaginable (the cast was great on paper, but the execution was laughable on every level). Lee’s “Hulk” cost $150 million to make and did a underachieving $132 million in tickets in North America (and apparently did poorly overseas).
The do-over is set for June 13. Some choice quotes throughout the piece (We’re glad we’re not the only ones who think it looks like mediocre ass):
“There are people who clearly don’t think it looks good and are expecting a bomb,” said Doug Creutz, an entertainment analyst at Cowan & Company.
Entertainment Weekly pronounced the computer-generated effects “totally fake-looking,” while obsessedwithfilm.com deemed the project “just hideous.”
And apparently, the micro-managing Norton, who co-wrote the script, won’t cooperate with promoting the film if he doesn’t get his way (the director Louis Leterrier is the nobody who did ‘The Transporter 2,’ so you know dude is getting pushed around).
The chairman of Marvel Studios is in full-on euphemism damage control mode all around. “When you get to this point in the process, there are always lots of passionate discussions,” he told the Times. “Edward is very passionate. He is as passionate about the Hulk as we are.”
Fandango, ranks the film as the fourth “most anticipated new character portrayal” of the summer. (Over all the movie ranked as the seventh “most anticipated summer 2008” movie, not exactly stellar numbers)
The Times notes that even the usually grossly fawning Stan Lee is sounding a little cool when it comes to the ‘Hulk’ reboot project. “My prediction is that it will be more popular than the last one,” he said. On the other hand, his thoughts about “Iron Man”? “Enormous hit,” he said.
Naturally, the film will do well. But will it exceed expectations or match those of the deservedly-pissed on Lee film? Seems unlikely. This one seems destined for disappointment anyway you slice it. We’d be lying if we said all this doom saying didn’t leave us with a little bit of schadenfreude (for the record, we didn’t make that image and we do like Norton a lot, but we thought it was amusing and yes, he does seem rather meddlesome).
