Universal Pictures
HULK
Starring Eric Bana (Bruce Banner / The Hulk), Jennifer Connely (Betty Ross), Sam Elliot (Thaddeous Ross), and Nick Nolte (David Banner) with a special appearance by Stan Lee
Directed by Ang Lee
Produced by Avi Arad, Larry Franco, Gale Anne Hurd, and James Schamus with Kevin Feige
Written by James Schmaus with Michael France and John Turman
Music By Danny Elfman
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Run Time: 2 hours and 18 minutes
World Premier: June 20, 2003
Opening Weekend Box Office: $62 million
Worldwide Box Office: $245 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 63%
Universal Pictures
Fun Hulk Facts
Facing bankruptcy in the mid-1990’s, Marvel licensed out the film rights to several characters in an effort to keep the company afloat. The upstart Marvel Studios, led by Avi Arad, negotiated these deals which would see other Studios finance and distribute Marvel films with Marvel Studios assisting in a production role that would give them a say in the script-writing process, the hiring of directors, and casting. Universal Pictures, who had been at various stages of development on a Hulk movie since 1992, began working with Marvel Studios in early-2000 to finally bring The Incredible Hulk to the Silver Screen.
On September 6, 2005, Marvel Enterprises became Marvel Entertainment; a reflection of the company’s new initiative to finance its own motion pictures through Marvel Studios. Hulk was produced and released prior to this massive shift in direction for Marvel Studios.
The rules of Universal Pictures’ distribution rights pertaining to all things Hulk stipulated that only Universal could distribute a film that featured The Hulk as the titular character. When Marvel Studios began producing their own independently financed films in 2008, they selected The Hulk as one of the foundations of their Marvel Cinematic Universe. 2008 would see the release of Iron Man followed by The Incredible Hulk (starring Edward Norton). While Iron Man was a smash hit both financially and critically, the response to The Incredible Hulk was much more lukewarm and creative differences plagued the production. Despite boasting an entirely new cast, Univeral saw The Incredible Hulk as a sequel, while Marvel Studios saw the film as a new start for the character within the MCU, with goals of including The Hulk in Marvel Studios’ revolutionary team-up film The Avengers in 2012. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Entertainment (and Marvel Studios with it) and Walt Disney Pictures became the distributor of Marvel Studios films. The working relationship with Universal floundered and The Hulk was recast (Mark Ruffalo), remaining a central part of the MCU, but never in his own film.
For years, The Incredible Hulk were largely ignored by Marvel Studios, but that began to change in MCU Phase Four with the production of the Disney+ streaming series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which directly referenced the film. These days, Hulk’s and their mythology are rumored to be prominently featured in Marvel Studios’ upcoming feature film Captain America: Brave New World. In the meantime, The Incredible Hulk has at long last been made available for viewing on Disney+.
Universal Pictures
My Hulk Review
Hulk was in a word … boring.
Man, as a Hulk fan, I really wanted to like this movie because I think The Hulk is freaking awesome and I’m a fan of the television series that starred Bill Bixby, and this film tried to be great, it really did, but it just … failed.
Director Ang Lee took this film very seriously and he told a dramatic story centered around childhood trauma in an effort to ground Bruce Banner as a character, but there were two things working against his efforts. The first was CGI. The technology just wasn’t there yet to bring The Hulk to life. Look, I appreciate the effort. I think it was a great decision to not have The Hulk be a guy in green makeup, but The Hulk we got in this film just looked too cartoony and not menacing enough. It would be 2012 in The Avengers before anyone truly got The Hulk right in terms of convincingly bringing the comic book character to life, and this film was made a decade before that one was. The other thing going against Hulk was the fact that most fans didn’t want to see a dramatic Hulk film. They wanted to see The Hulk smash and destroy and fight, and there just wasn’t enough of that in this film, and when there was, it was The Hulk fighting Hulk dogs and his Absorbing Man-like Dad, portrayed by Nick Nolte, who just overacted the entire film and brought it down.
It’s an hour into this film before we ever even see The Hulk and the comic book paneling style of the film was a cool concept on paper, but it ends up serving as a distraction. Both of those decisions were misfires.
Still, there is some good acting here. Jennifer Connelly is a great Betty Ross and Sam Elliot made a fine General Ross, Eric Bana worked hard to make every scene that he was in matter, and there is an interesting story to be found within the two hours plus it takes to watch this movie, but in the end, the bad outweighs the good and you’re left with a slow, dense, gloomy film that at times tried too hard to not be a comic book movie while at other times trying too hard to be that very thing.
Luckily for Hulk fans, things have gotten a lot better since 2003 and the Marvel Studios team seem to have big plans for the Green Goliath and his supporting cast of characters moving forward after giving viewers some wonderful Hulk moments over the years from fighting Tony Stark’s Hulkbuster (in Avengers: Age of Ultron), to donning Gladiator gear for a fight against Thor (in Thor: Ragnarok), to being the one to wield the Infinity Stones and reverse the deadly snap executed by Thanos (in Avengers: Endgame), and perhaps the best is still yet to come!
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