2008 has been THE year for Summer comic book movies!
According to figures on boxofficemojo.com, sometime on Friday, the combined box office might of the comic book-inspired The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, eclipsed the $1 billion dollar mark for 2008, standing roughly at $1.01 billion.
I think we can safely say there will be a deluge of silver screen adaptions of more comic book properties from DC, Marvel and even independent publishers in the next few years. Here’s hoping DC can use the momentum from Dark knight and map out a feasible strategy to getting us a blockbuster-level Justice League of America movie in the next 10 years. First we need a well received Superman movie, then Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman movies (with minor cameos for Martian Manhunter and Aquaman in one or two of those movies). Finally, you get the stars of those movies to do the JLA movie and you have a DC equivalent of what Marvel rolled out after Iron Man came out strong.
I’ll admit I wasn’t going in with the highest of expectations, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Incredible Hulk. The 2003 angsty Ang Lee debacle officially NEVER happened. Iron Man seems to have heralded a new and welcome trend as comic Book Movies seem to be stepping up their casting to the A-List level. Ed Norton is great as the slender gamma-challenged molecular research scientist with big anger management issues. William Hurt is General Thunderbolt Ross and Liv Tyler is beautiful Betty Ross to Norton’s beastly Hulk. Scroll down for thoughts on the first movie and why this was so much better.
The problems i had with the 2003 movie were apparent from the trailer which looked so bad that even i a die-hard comic book fan OPTED TO SKIP IT. I didn’t like the look of the hulk or how he moved or sounded, he had no rage weight or fury. Well THAT was more than taken care of in this version. First and foremost, this Hulk has POWER. I want to jump out of the way as he throws forklifts and can feel the wind created by his roar. Excellently rendered realistic CG and inspired fight choreography make the action sequences a treat to watch, and the acting from the main 3 does a good job of carrying us through the slower parts.
Also a hand to hand combat sequence between an enhanced but not yet abominable Emil Blonsky shows that the moves necessary for a Captain America movie are VERY possible.
Now I DO have to admit that Iron Man was still the superior film (Tony Stark has a cameo), but Incredible Hulk is a great popcorn movie and another step towards a quality Avengers movie.
There were some spots that felt like holes where scenes had been cut out. The fact that Betty’s boyfriend was psychiatrist Dr. Sampson (first name Leonard?), led me to believe he had more screen time originally - plus there was that psychoanalysis bit from the first trailer that I didn’t see in the movie.
I did have an issue with one of their best fanboy moments. I think they dropped the ball on the Stan Lee cameo. Stan is seen as an old man who drinks a beverage that has been tainted with Bruce Banner’s gamma charged blood and (we assume) hulks out. I say we assume, because they don’t show it. How cool would a CG hulked out Stan Lee have been???? I suppose they couldn’t justify the creating, rigging and animating another 3D model for 5-10 seconds of cameo - but it would have rocked.
Steve Rogers landed on the cutting room floor. It was reported last week that Captain America has a cameo in The Incredible Hulk. But alas, his appearance was part of an especially dark portion (Bruce heads to the “Arctic Circle in a Frankenstein-esque trek to kill himself” but meets Captain America there instead. Leterrier said the Cap footage will make it online and be part of the DVD release. I’ll add video or stills here if either becomes available.
Hulk director Louis Leterrier has all kinds of things to say about next week’s The Incredible Hulk! Captain America will be seen (we saw his shield in Iron Man). And Leterrier addresses the Edward Norton controversy.
As a comic fan i have to say i ALWAYS appreciate the wink and nudge fan moments in a comic book movie. Thats when you can tell, “wow the director actually read some of this title before making a movie”. Like seeing Remy leBeau’s name on a computer monitor, or Dr. Hank McCoy on a TV in X-Men or spotting Caps shield amongst the clutter in Tony Starks workshop.
The ladies talk about everything from being the only girl in the testosterone-fueled arena of comic book films to what superpower they would (or wouldn’t) want and the evolution of the damsel in distress.
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