This weekend, when “The Incredible Hulk” finally SMASHES his way into theaters, Marvel will sit with its fingers crossed, hoping he demolishes not just expectations (and half of Harlem), but lingering memories of the character’s previous big-screen incarnation as well. And why not? As cast and crew members, including Tim Blake Nelson, Stan Lee and director Louis Leterrier told us, this could be the start of something big (read their thoughts on what they want to see in the sequel).
But while Leterrier is positively thrilled at the prospect of a “Hulk 2” and “The Avengers,” of which Hulk will be a part, he can’t help but wonder: Will the superhero genre start to drown itself in its own excess? Or, to put it more simply, when will enough be enough?
“I actually got a little scared while I was making the movie. I saw the slate of the movies that were coming out this summer: ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Hulk,’ and then you have ‘Batman’ and ‘Hancock,’ and later you’ll have ‘Watchmen.’ It’s getting a little oversaturated in superhero films, and at one point they’re probably going to get boring,” he contended. “Especially if it’s the same type of story — either the defender of the earth, Superman kind of superhero or self-doubting Spider-Man, Hulk kind of superhero.
“There’s a fad of superheroes,” he added. “And they go up and they go down.”
So how do you keep it fresh, keep it different? Leterrier says that Marvel has the right idea with “The Avengers,” due in 2011. “That’s the future of superhero movies: the crossover, the alternatives.”
But at the same time he insists they need to go even further.
“I’m begging [Marvel Studios President] Kevin [Feige] to do ‘1602,’ the Neil Gaiman version, you know, the almost medieval superhero movie,” Leterrier said. “I’d love to see that. That’d be a nice switch on the superhero movie.
“Or Hulk goes global, even bigger. ‘World War Hulk!’ ” he added. “That would be my dream come true.”
For the uninitiated, “1602” was a limited series written by Gaiman where the Marvel superheroes were transplanted to Elizabethan times, giving us characters like Sir Nicholas Fury (intelligence officer to the Queen) and Peter Parquagh. “World War Hulk” is a recent Marvel crossover comic series that saw the big green guy smash his way across the globe, fighting and defeating the likes of Iron Man, the X-Men and Dr. Strange along the way.
Forget rights issues for all these characters (which recently derailed a Spider-Man cameo in “The Incredible Hulk”) — filmmakers need to start thinking of doing things like this now, Leterrier insisted. And, believe it or not, it’s easier than you’d think.
“For example, on ‘The Hulk,’ we shot a lot. We could have had a four-hour movie. Why not do our own ‘Kill Bill,’ where you have ‘1602’ part one May 3rd and then June 2nd, ‘1602’ part two?” he wondered. “It’s not impossible to do in this industry, and these movies actually would be good to do. There’s many, many things to do with superhero movies, many things to do. [Right now] is just the beginning.”
What do you think of Leterrier’s comments? Is the superhero genre starting to devour its own tail? Would you long to see a miniseries event like “1602,” “World War Hulk” or “House of M”? And if not, how would you go about keeping the movies fresh? Sound off below.
However, as a period costume movie, it needs an English cast,and English accents, that is all there was in the world then. So that is going to leave out all the US actors, shame eh?.
When you ask about the other movie goers, Mere, why is it that you care about them?. If they want to go see movies they "Understand", I am sure Will Farrell will make a few more.
I have never understood this feeling people have that "No, that won't work, it is too Sci Fi for most people". MOST people actually don't go to every movie. Why can't we have movies made for us, and the sports fans have movies made for them? and the idiots have Jim Carey make them movies, everyone is happy then.
:P
Example: Serenity
Greatest Sci-Fi universe ever launched on film...$37million domestically.
As most of you know, Iron Man 2 is on basically a rushed schedule do the the success and the fact that Marvel Studios has NOTHING in 2009. With a graphic novel storyline, you can finish things up in one sitting and the story lines are usually so strong that you won't need to really do much editing.
Or the easy thing for Marvel is to take back ownership of all their properties and space them out properly. There's no reason that Hulk, Iron Man and Punisher should be coming out in the same year.
The other thing about taking back their properties... they would have the ability to do cameos leading into their next movie... the final scene in Iron Man should have been Fury recruiting him and telling him about a "problem" they've got with a certain green fella. Or in the Hulk movie, show us the Punisher or Spidey and have those movies come out the next year... something like that. Or Hulk fight Thing in the Avengers movie then do another FF movie following that.
There's endless possibilities and the worry of comic book movie oversaturation is a ridiculous concern. People will always see Lucas properties (Indiana Jones/Star Wars), Star Trek movies and comic book movies... as long as they're done well, Marvel Studios will be around for years.
As for 'World War Hulk' or '1602', those would be cool for us comic fans, but will people get it?
WWHulk, especially, is a story dependent on the viewer being aware of a lot of other stuff that has happened already:
Hulk being a menace, time and time again him being stopped and "cured" only to cause trouble again,
as well as his heroics in between (part of the rationalization of why he was ticked off about being shot into space is that while he was trouble sometimes, he also did good as well),
then being banished from earth (The illuminati makes for an easy "Face of the enemy" but is not a must...although it makes the fight once he gets to earth more significant),
then going from gladiator slave to the empororer of that world (And becoming beloved...gotta show why these aliens love him and will follow him),
THEN having his pod blow up and kill his wife and child (And the blame he has for those who made the pod).
Basically you're looking at a full LotR length film just to set up the action for this one (Sure you can compress it down into a short flashback sequence, or narrated), which may be good (Hollywood always wants more movies ideas, so why not make WWHulk into a pair, or trilogy).
With 1602 (I fear I'm not too familiar with the stories per say, I know the premise) while you can make stand alone stories well enough, part of the draw is for fans to see how their favorite characters are re-imagined here. Again, a lot of general movie goers won't likely get a lot of the injokes (Unless they are REALLY dumbed down and made obvious) so the question becomes, "Who is your audience"
Basically, the big problem (I see) with making direct trasnlations of COmics to movies is that in the comics, the characters live in a very rich universe, where cameos from other characters are commonplace. Combine that with the rich history of every major character and you end up with movies where some fans will get the joke, but most will likely either miss it completely or realize they're missing something.
(I don't really know anything about World War Hulk.)