The Incredible Hulk - What went wrong?

[SavageBanner]

But did it with 545 fewer theater showing TIH. Look at the stats. When I went to see the movie a 2nd time, a week later, it was 90% packed.

When I went to see it again the 2nd weekend, it was about half full, but it was fuller than you'd normally see for a Saturday afternoon matinee, and the audience was really into it.

I think TIH just got caught in a wash of new premieres this past weekend. The long-term box office sales will ultimately tell us if it will be a success or not. Even Superman returns managed to make 200 million before the DVD finally went out, and that movie received much more bad word-of-mouth than TIH, which to be honest, I haven't heard very much negative about, comparatively speaking.

 

[Zero_Vault]

Point taken.Okay but let's say the Movie had been cut down to about 90 minutes.
because 2and a half hours is a long time for any movie.Unless it has constant development.What I mean is this.Hulk is based on Dr.Jekell Mr.Hyde and Frankinstein.In Dr.Jekell Mr.Hyde the story grabs you because you see his situation develop from being a respected Doctor to being persued by the police in connection with Hyde for murder etc.While trying to hide his identity as Hyde from those who would seek to capture him.Okay now Frankinstein was a creature who did not ask to be born,and was born into a world that did not want him and persecuted him for being different.At first the creature is just a raving Monster built with fear trying to defend himself.As the movie goes on he begins to develop.He meets an old man who treats him kindly and also teaches him to talk.We eventually begin to feel sorry for the misunderstood creature.We see the villigers as villians.We see his story unravall.It keeps you intrigued.Now if you look at both stories you can see the Hulk.In the begining of the Hulk series he was actually written this way.This respected Doctor begins to see his world fall apart around him and the Monster that he tranforms into is persecuted for comming into a world he never asked to come into.All the while both characters are developing the doctor is dealing with his situation as best as possible while the creature develops into his own personna learning to speak and adjust and finding himself all the while being persecuted.Now Dr.Jekell Mr.Hyde has it's focus on Bruce banner while Frankinstein has it's focus on the Hulk.Both of these stories make the Hulk not just one but both combine.you cannot have one without the other.Now after all this you may ask where the heck is this guy going with this?Okay here goes.The first Movie had the focus on the Hulk Frankinstein focus the second Movie had the Dr Jekell Bruce Banner focus but neither had both.If they would have nailed this concept the story would have been well rounded.Just like the comic.we would have been entertained regardless of what form he was Banner or Hulk.this where both movies dropped the ball.

You just nailed it.

You nailed it like Christ on the Cross.

I'm a tired of these ****ty screenplay writers, so I'm just going to write the "third" sequel myself. I just found out, I can write better than all these hacks.

 

[Ita-KalEl]

Everyone says to be happy. From Marvel to the fans.

Nevertheless it is a bit strange that in 2003 Hulk was considered one of the worse flop ever, they canned the sequel (because they clearly expected more) and greenlited a reboot...and now they are happy with the same identical box office numbers of a reboot that cost more.

LOL
IMO they are trying to hide the truth: that the operation reboot is a huge failure.

 

[SpaghettiHULK]

Everyone says to be happy. From Marvel to the fans.

Nevertheless it is a bit strange that in 2003 Hulk was considered one of the worse flop ever, they canned the sequel (because they clearly expected more) and greenlited a reboot...and now they are happy with the same identical box office numbers of a reboot that cost more.

LOL
IMO they are trying to hide the truth: that the operation reboot is a huge failure.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_incredible_hulk/reviews_users.php

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800080/ratings

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hulk/reviews_users.php

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/ratings

 

[Hiruu]

Everyone says to be happy. From Marvel to the fans.

Nevertheless it is a bit strange that in 2003 Hulk was considered one of the worse flop ever, they canned the sequel (because they clearly expected more) and greenlited a reboot...and now they are happy with the same identical box office numbers of a reboot that cost more.

LOL
IMO they are trying to hide the truth: that the operation reboot is a huge failure.

If you say...but the test of failure or success will be another film. So, If Marvel greenlights another Hulk movie, what will you say then?

 

[The Guard]

Nothing went "wrong". People just aren't THAT into The Hulk. It strikes me as pretty much that simple. A man who turns into a monster just isn't cool enough to be a huge draw these days.

 

[SFII]

anyone here want to claim that Serenity not doing well in the theaters had anything to do with the quality of the movie?

It was marketing. The movie was not to blame...and it is an amazing movie.

Same goes for TIH, except it wasn't marketing that did a poor job...it was the poor timing in comparison to Ang Lee's poorly received movie and a little bit of the marketing.

Sure, TIH is not an unbelieveable movie, but it is still worthy of praise in many respects and really I've never heard anyone outside of these threads put it down...actually, I only hear people who have seen it loving it.

So I truly feel that the movie's quality is not to blame for it's less then wanted box office take thus far. TIH is a very good movie.

i disagree. Serenity sucked.
the first quarter of it was great, and it seemed like it was going to be a real good movie, but then it just went downhill. and totally lost my interest. those cheap imitation actors started getting on my nerves.

 

[DACrowe]

i disagree. Serenity sucked.
the first quarter of it was great, and it seemed like it was going to be a real good movie, but then it just went downhill. and totally lost my interest. those cheap imitation actors started getting on my nerves.

This is all opinion.. But NO ONE DISSES THE BIG DAMN MOVIE.

Just a head's up.

 

[SFII]

Juno made over $140 million domestic. A lot of people saw it. Heck, TIH might not match Juno's take. Those numbers are amazing for a low budget, independent movie, without a bankable star.

Still, the larger point stands, box office and quality often aren't related. At all. There are plenty of masterpieces that didn't make anywhere close to what TIH is going to gross. And, let's remember, $150 million, give or take, is still a lot of money and TIH is likely to be in the top 15 to 20 of the year at the end of it.

Personally, I think the true answer about Hulk's box office is "nothing went wrong". The general public just isn't that interested in the Hulk. He's not a $200+ million franchise, but simply a mid-tier $150 million or so one. Projecting from Ang Lee's opening weekend, that version, even if well received, only projected at $150 million to $180 million total domestic. TIH isn't out of line with that level of interest.

Arguably, Hulk is right in line with his comic book popularity. X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman support multiple titles and often can be seen at the top of the charts. Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Punisher, V for Vendetta, often are more cult favorites or critical favorites than mass popular. Hulk and Fantastic Four are somewhere in the middle, rarely at the top of the charts over the last 20+ years.

I think the better question is "What went right with Iron Man?" There's a very good chance that Captain America and Thor will do closer to TIH numbers if the answer to that question isn't figured out.

i love this post right here. it reiterrated a lot of excellent points, that i agree with.

What went right with Iron Man was it's genius marketing, and perfect timing. the marketing of Iron Man was double the efforts of TIH ever was. it was everywhere, even incorporated into the NBA playoffs.
and the timing of the release was perfect because it was basically the First heavily anticipated movie to come out before the others. everyone was craving to see something exciting for the summer, and Iron Man was right there to fulfill their craving.

i seriously wonder if TIH was the one to be released on Iron Man's date instead, and Iron Man were to be released during TIH's release date... would The Incredible Hulk be the bigger hit, and would Iron Man just be kindof lost in the shuffle? I tend to believe that. and then everyone in here would be like "man, why is Iron Man not doing so well? it was just as good as TIH!"

 

[Diamondhead]

Bad publicity and overexposure might hurt!
I didn’t see it yet but the idea of making a show about American gladiator where everything is in green! Might have churned some people stomach off!
They’ve had their fill; People might have it up to here already!

Remember it’s like that stupid gargantuan TV movie on fox that hurt Godzilla,
And I bet they made a marathon of the incredible hulk 70’s series on some deja vue channel before the release of the movie too, huh!
How bright can you be?!
And
If you make toy publicity before the release!
It may go against a movie like that too!

And most of all!
They didn’t use the best thing about the incredible hulk!
It’s the fact that it is an ordinary man that transforms into a big green “mean” man monster
And a lot of people don’t know that!
Don’t just show a big green muscle-bound square jaw face yelling at the public!

Therefore, make a poster showing that transformation
Or even better…some kind of 3d poster creating that illusion.
They have the technology why didn’t they use it. Don’t tell me it would’ve been too expensive to do!

And I think some movie in other to be “successful” needs some negative review
Otherwise the pubic will think you’re pulling their leg!
Every movie critic magazines out there had a good review and coxed the public to
“See it” as if they were paid off.
lol

And finally jealousy might have a role in “what went wrong”.
We had wonderful director and cast for the first hulk movie and then you decided to change it suddenly
I mean these people have thousands if not millions of followers that will not see the movie because of that.
Just like superman returns was ruined by jalousie.

 

[Batgort]

The marketing money went to iron man. Marvel Studios had limited money to bet and they put most of their chips on iron man, which turned out to rock. After all, the hulk was a risky move -- bad taste left over from the 03 hulk, and the fact that the hulk is closer to a monster movie than a super heroe movie.

If I were to say TIH had a flaw, it would be that Banner was too much of a fugitive and not enough of a brilliant scientist. It also wasn't until the end of the film where we saw the Banner character evolve from the frightened fugitive just trying to rid himself of the hulk, to start dealing with his own internal issues and wanting to understand the hulk more.

A truly great hulk story shows the psychology of Banner and the personification of that in the hulk, not a flat character who just gets pissed off and then a demolition show. The supporting cast suffered from the same single-dimension aspect until the last 20 minutes of the film when they were like "holy crap, the hulk does good things!"

If we see Norton in The Avengers as the brilliant scientist and then unleashes the hulk to save the day, that would be great.

If they do another hulk film, it's going to have to be a have more dynamics to it then just the pissed off dude gets angry. We need to understand Banner's motivation more and his emotional states, and we need to see that represented in the hulk doing different things (e.g. banner being in control of the hulk, or not, or getting stronger or weaker).

 

[Spider-X]

i disagree. Serenity sucked.
the first quarter of it was great, and it seemed like it was going to be a real good movie, but then it just went downhill. and totally lost my interest. those cheap imitation actors started getting on my nerves.

well, you feel different then the majority of people who saw Serenity...and that's really a poor critique to be saying a movie sucks.

I personally love that gorram movie...and in the immortal words of The Dude: "that's just, like, your opinion, man..."

 

[SFII]

well, you feel different then the majority of people who saw Serenity...and that's really a poor critique to be saying a movie sucks.

I personally love that gorram movie...and in the immortal words of The Dude: "that's just, like, your opinion, man..."

see, the Big Lebowski i liked!

 

[Spider-X]

see, the Big Lebowski i liked!

well...then at least we have something in common t:

 

[Anubis Raptor]

Not enough hype for the movie is why it didn't make the amount of money it was supposed to make.

I mean c'mon, it was atleast supposed to make 3-4x's more than 2003's HULK.

 

[Lord Blackbolt]

Release date plays a huge part in things....I think If Iron-man was released in june ....I doubt it would have been such a big hit. It started the summer season.... I mean look at Narnia 2....that was projected to make 300 mil in the Us alone....A better release date might have made that possible.

IMO....since Marvel didn't have any movies lined up for 2009....why didn't they just release Hulk in that time. IMO...it seems like there's another comic book movie coming out every week. I know I'm a little tired of it...and I love comics.

 

[batman497]

What went wrong?
First off a reboot!!! Only five years later. Why didn' they just make a sequel with some differnet cast members. I mean it starts in south america for goodness sake. Why not just make it a sequel? Why confuse the casual fan?
Replacing good cast mebers. I loved bana in hulk but I can see replacing him with norton. He's a bigger name and looks the part more but jennifer connely destroys liv tyler every day of the week. Sam Elliott rocks william hurt in his sleep.
Using basically the same story! Hulk vs millitary we already saw that. I know it's a big part of the comic but it was almost identical.
Changing some of the better parts of he first hulk. I loved the jumping I loved the running in hulk and last time I checked madder hulk gets stronger hulk get! What happened with that. That's how he beats abomination othewise abom would thrash him. No healing well what happens when he turns back to bruce?
Hulk's powers were toned down too much.
Bad writing!!! I can't believe Norton re-wrote this because some of it is awful.Man I know 70 minutes is missing but sheesh. What happened to doc sampson? Why was he even in it?
Liv tyler needs to stop whispering!! She has no talent at all.
Bad marketing. It seemed they didn't do a thing until a month before. It almost seems like they didn't want to detract form iron man.
The movie in my opinion really made no statement and had no real point other then to watch hulk smash things and gradually watch special effects deteriorate.
Enough with the jokes and cameos. I know they ae trying to make an avenger movie but enough already. No more Stan lee or ferrigno!!! No more wink wink moments. Let's keep it to one or two a movie not 27.
Joke sex scenes! What is marvel's obsession with sexual acts for there heros. All the x-men movies have weird sexual situations and questions. Like logan asking bobby about his and rogue's sex life. Mystique half raping logan. Fantastic four jokes about reed richards stretching ability. And best of all banner getting too excited with betty in a hotel. Okay we get it mutant sex scenarios would be awkward. Alfred would not ask bruce how he bangs chicks in the suit. We got enough of that woth BR B&R BF. Take the movies seriously and so will others.
Hulk cave scene. I know it's directly form the comics but where did this damn cave come from? Aren't they in new york it looked like a damn rainforrest. Where did the rain in the college confrontation come from?
End fight sucked. While I'll admit it was better then ang lee's final confrontation it was still bad it was too short and was really anti-climatic. There were just so many other things they could have done and it looked really lame with the chain.

Just so I am not made out to be completley biased, things I liked!
Norton was really good for the first 30 minutes. This movie had an awesome first 30 min.
Tim roth was good maybe not physicaly fitting the part but he was pretty darn good.
Guy who played Mr. Blue/ Leader. Yea it was a little over the top but it was pretty entertaining.
Hulk in the beggining looked good and I loved the voice the efects just kind of lost consistency.

All and all I didn't like it. It was a dumbed down version and I think people flt that too. It was trying to be just in your face action and even that didn't do it. People want good movies. Marvel did not deliver and this movies failure is their fault not the viewer's.

 

[batman497]

Sorry a couple more:
All the villains seem to have the same basic drive, power. Well every villain can't have the same reasoning for their acts. You kind of just keep repeating the same story and all your characters become pretty one dimensional.
In the first movie hulk is unique. He was not just an act of science but genetics and environment so when you simplify it so much he bcomes less interesting. If Ross had the super solier serum all this time why didn't he just make fifty of them. If all they needed was bruce's blood it makes him just one it what can be an endless amount of these monsters. I thought ang lee's explaination was way better.
It all seems so unrealistic. A great part about hulk and batman begins it is grounded in reality. They actually studied what it would take for a human to become a hulk now we just get some rdiculous chair and some serum and then apparently some cure is injecting him with purple stuff and electracuting him. Huh? Tak it serious and so will others make it relevant to real situations and real lives.

 

[The Guard]

Nothing went "wrong". People just aren't THAT into The Hulk. It strikes me as pretty much that simple. A man who turns into a monster just isn't cool enough to be a huge draw these days.

 

[Archrivals]

Everyone says to be happy. From Marvel to the fans.

Nevertheless it is a bit strange that in 2003 Hulk was considered one of the worse flop ever, they canned the sequel (because they clearly expected more) and greenlited a reboot...and now they are happy with the same identical box office numbers of a reboot that cost more.

LOL
IMO they are trying to hide the truth: that the operation reboot is a huge failure.

READ THIS:

MARVEL/MERRILL LYNCH MOVIE DEAL:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/9553.html

 

[Evil Twin]

There's something screwy going on with those numbers or they haven't been explained very well. It pretty much has to be on the basis of estimated revenue from foreign box office, merchandising, and DVD in addition to box office since it's impossible for a $150 million film to break even on $100 million domestic box office alone.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

The problem with this movie is ANG LEE!!!!!!

People don't forget very easily & with the high prices of tickets these days people don't want to be duped twice.

Superman Returns was an "ok" but many people didn't go see it because of word of mouth AND because many people remember Superman IV which pretty much killed the franchise & made the legend of Superman look like a complete fool.

The Hulk was so bad in 2003 people just don't want any part of the Hulk no matter how good this movie is.

Plus the Hulk is so difficult to make real on the screen. Its kind of hard to understand because Yoda looks so real in ATOC and in ROTS but even in this movie the Hulk doesn't look realistic.

The only thing that can save the Hulk franchise is teaming the character with Iron Man & other Marvel heros.

Ang Lee & shoddy CGI ruined it for this generation.

 

[COAL TIGER]

Typical of comic book fans to blame Ang Lee for new Hulks failures.

 

[dark_b]

people complained that there was not enough of hulk action in ang lee.
now tell me how many minutes until the first hulk transformation? and he is in the shadows for christ sake. this i not the first movie. you dont need to tease the hulk. .

 

[Sava]

Typical of comic book fans to blame Ang Lee for new Hulks failures.

lol, exactly, how f**kin ******ed. Ang's Hulk affected TIH's opening weekend, its second weekend and thrid weekend drops are all down to its self.

What went wrong?

1) Moving Hulk from ILM to R&H. You want the best, you go to the best, R&H arent the best, they arent even in the top 3 for f**k sake. You leave ILM, get your ass over to WETA, not R&H.

2) Marvel didnt have enough balls, they pu*sied out, they tapped out as soon as they saw that Norton's TIH was more character driven. We were promised a movie that was closer to the comics and they lost their way.

3) Didnt let the actor do what they do best...ACT!!!! This is probably the worst performence i've seen by Norton and i'd give this performance a 6/10. You had Hurt, Roth and Norton for god sake and non of them really shined. This is also down to Marvel not wanting to push the movie into character driven stuff. They wanted just enough from the actors and then they would go for the next action sequence.

4) Marketing, again, Marvel's fault really, they started shooting so f**kin late, Universal didnt have anything to start promos with.

5) Staying with Universal, these guys suck balls at marketing.