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COUNTLESS comic-book bad guys have made the fatal
mistake of underestimating the Hulk. Have Hollywood and
the media made the same costly error? For weeks,
industry gossip and news reports have focused not only
on the shaky stance of Speed Racer—which seems
certain to be spanked by
Iron Man over the weekend—but also the outlook
and production problems for June 13’s The Incredible
Hulk. Some people inside Hulk distributor Universal
Pictures say picking on the not-so-jolly green giant has
become as much an industry blood sport as talent
agencies’ raiding their rival firms.
Universal and Marvel Studios, which bankrolled Hulk,
believe two recent events have dramatically upgraded the
film’s prospects. First was last weekend’s stunning
$99-million opening of Iron Man, the first movie
independently developed, produced and financed by
Marvel. Second was Hulk’s late-April presentation at New
York’s Comic-Con convention, which immediately sparked a
flood of rave Internet postings.
Because
Hulk doesn’t open for more than a month from now,
audience tracking surveys have yet to show how
interested—or uninterested—ticket buyers might be in the
adaptation. But Universal and Marvel are both confident
that once people see the new film, they will quickly
forget the sour aftertaste from the earlier Hulk,
which Universal both made and released.
“The
biggest challenge on The Incredible Hulk was Ang
Lee’s Hulk in 2003,” says Kevin Feige, president of
Marvel Studios.
In
absolute and relative terms, director Lee’s superhero
movie opened fantastically, grossing $62.1 million in
its first weekend. That placed it among the strongest
introductions of any comic-book movie, trailing 2002’s
Spider-Man (which opened with $114.8 million) but
ahead of 2000’s X-Men ($54.5 million), 2003’s
Daredevil ($40.3 million) and 2005’s Fantastic
Four ($56.1 million).
But
Hulk’s real (and crushing) story unfolded over its
second weekend, where
middling reviews and corrosive word-of-mouth pushed
its grosses down a staggering 70 percent.
More
action this time
IN
deciding to return to the property after such a brief
hiatus, Marvel and Universal tried to figure out what
went wrong on the first film and how they could better
capture the enduring appeal of one of Marvel’s most
popular creations. They also realized they would have to
cut through a wall of disbelievers.
“We knew
people would be out there saying, ‘Why are you doing it
again?’” says Adam Fogelson, Universal’s marketing
chief.
Universal and Marvel focused on three areas for
improvement: Hulk had to be more heroic and romantic and
less brooding, the new film needed to be a
straight-ahead action film and not a psychological
origin story, and Hulk had to be cast and made in a
manner to convince moviegoers it was not a cynical shot
at an easy payday.
“The
first Hulk was not as much of an action film,” says Gale
Anne Hurd, a producer on the 2003 original and this
summer’s retry. “And this time the Hulk really has a
foe—the Abomination. The movie does not examine how he
became the Hulk.”
Feige
says Lee’s first Hulk film delved into a tiny fraction
of the character’s mythology. “I just knew that 99
percent of the Hulk story hadn’t been explored yet,” he
says.
As it
did with Iron Man, which stars Robert Downey Jr.
and Gwyneth Paltrow, Marvel chose to cast Hulk with
accomplished actors who theoretically wouldn’t get
involved in a project that wasn’t classy.
The Hulk
(known in friendlier moments as Bruce Banner) is played
by Fight Club’s Edward Norton, while Emil Blonsky
(who is transformed into the Abomination) is played by
fellow Oscar-nominee Tim Roth (Rob Roy). The film is
directed by Louis Leterrier, a young French filmmaker
best known for the stylish, low-budget Transporter crime
dramas.
Late
start for trailer
THE
five-year proximity to the first Hulk wasn’t Marvel and
Universal’s only challenge. Because the new edition
involved elaborate special effects, Universal wasn’t
able to release a teaser trailer until March (many
high-profile films launch their first trailers half a
year before they hit theaters). “We wanted to make sure
that from the very beginning of the creative campaign
that we showed that this movie was different from the
first,” Fogelson says.
But
since it took so long for the trailer to arrive, the
pessimists controlled the debate. “I never quite felt it
was a whipping boy, but I could feel the angst: Why
aren’t we seeing anything?” Feige says.
Fogelson
says that while the press and a few bloggers were asking
countless skeptical questions about the film (including
a behind-the-scenes drama involving Norton’s script
ideas), promotional partners were sending a different
message: They wanted in. Hulk will have more such deals
than any other Universal movie this year, with the
affiliates including Burger King, 7-Eleven, Best Buy,
the GNC vitamin stores and Kmart.
But it
was at April’s Comic-Con gathering that Universal was
able to make its biggest impression. The
San Diego
version of the geek fest attracts a much greater
Hollywood
and fan presence, but it happens after Hulk’s premiere.
So Universal and Marvel went to Manhattan, showing a new
trailer, screening an extended scene and introducing the
fact that Iron Man’s Tony Stark makes a Hulk
cameo appearance. (It’s a cross-pollination strategy
that Marvel has used in its comics and recently applied
to Iron Man when the film’s final frames teased
to Samuel L. Jackson’s upcoming appearance as the
character Nick Fury.)
The
reaction was overwhelming.
In a
recent conference call with stock analysts, Marvel
Studios chairman David Maisel said the new Hulk trailer
“is the most viewed trailer on the Internet that
[Universal has] ever released.”
Several
fan sites gushed over the Comic-Con panel and were
especially impressed with the much improved and imposing
look of the title character: “I left dying to see the
movie” (i09.com); “Surely, anyone...who saw this
presentation has little doubt that Leterrier, Marvel
Studios and Universal got it right this time” (comingsoon.net);
and “They won us over and we totally missed the panel” (nymag.com).
Daunting
competitors
UNLIKE
Iron Man, which opened against little
competition, Hulk faces a far more challenging
schedule. It opens opposite M. Night Shyamalan’s The
Happening, is preceded a week by Adam Sandler’s
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan and is followed a week
later by Mike Myers’s The Love Guru and Steve
Carell’s Get Smart.
And as
well as Iron Man did (with the Hulk trailer
playing before most of the film’s showings), its
premiere may set unreasonably high expectations for
Marvel’s second effort. “The good news is it means
people want to go to the movies,” Hurd says. “And it’s a
little like American Idol. Does it mean the person who
gets the second most votes isn’t a good singer?” |
