For the character known by the same name as this film, see Hulk
Hulk | |
Directed by: | Ang lee |
Produced by: | Avi Arad Larry J. Franco Gale Anne Hurd Stan Lee James Schamus Kevin Feige |
Written by: |
Screenplay: James Schamus Michael France John Turman Story: James Schamus Based on comic book characters by: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby |
Music by: |
Danny Elfman |
Duration: |
138 minutes |
Budget: |
$137 million |
Gross Revenue: |
$245.36 million |
Previous film: |
None |
Next film: |
The Incredible Hulk (new franchise) |
Hulk is a 2003 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Ang Lee directed the film, which stars Eric Bana as Dr. Bruce Banner, Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross, Sam Elliott as General Thaddeus Ross, Nick Nolte as David Banner, and Josh Lucas as Major Glenn Talbot. The film explores the Hulk's origins, mainly attributed to Banner's father's experiments on himself and passing those genes on to his son.
Plot[]
David Banner (not the same character as in the TV series) is a genetics researcher trying to improve human DNA, so he experiments on himself. Once his wife Edith gives birth to their son Bruce, David realizes Bruce inherited his mutated genes. He attempts to find a cure for Bruce's condition when the government, represented by Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, shuts down his research after learning of his dangerous experiment. In a fit of rage, David causes a massive explosion of the facilities' gamma reactor and accidentally kills Edith. The murder makes Bruce repress his early childhood memories. David is committed to a mental hospital, while four-year-old Bruce is sent into foster care and adopted, taking on the last name of Krenzler, believing his birth parents are dead.
Thirty years later, Bruce Banner is a brilliant scientist at the University of California in Berkeley, working with nanomeds and gamma radiation. The military-industrial complex, represented by the wicked Major Talbot, becomes interested in the research to build regenerating soldiers. David Banner reappears and begins infiltrating his son's life, working as a janitor in the lab building. "Thunderbolt" Ross, now an army General, also begins investigating. Ross, the estranged father of Bruce's ex-girlfriend and co-researcher Betty Ross, becomes concerned for his daughter's safety around Bruce because Bruce is working in the same field as David had.
While his assistant Harper tries fixing a gammasphere, it goes haywire and exposes Bruce to a deadly amount of gamma radiation as he helps Harper; the radiation combines with Bruce's already-altered DNA. Afterward, he sits in a hospital bed telling Betty that he has never felt better, which she can't fathom since the nanomeds have killed everything else they've touched. That night, his father confronts him, revealing their relationship and hinting at the mutation in his son. Using Bruce's DNA, he begins experimentation on animals. Soon after, the building rage within him stemming from the growing stresses around him (his father, Betty, Talbot, and the accident) activates his gamma-radiated DNA, triggering Bruce's first transformation into the Hulk.
After the lab's destruction, Betty finds Bruce unconscious in his home. Bruce barely remembers his transformation, describing it as a sensation similar to birth. Then Ross arrives, suspicious, and sends Betty off. Betty finds David Banner and asks him about Bruce, but he only gives her cryptic answers; in the process, David acquires Betty's scarf. After hours of interrogation, Ross puts Bruce under house arrest, takes over the lab, and threatens Bruce to stay away from Betty.
That night, Betty drives to her cabin in the woods. David uses Betty's scarf to rile up his three dogs and phones Bruce to tell him he has mutated the dogs and unleashed them on Betty. Enraged, Bruce tries to leave, but Talbot attacks him. When Talbot tackles him to the ground, Bruce says, "You're making me angry," with Talbot responding, "Oh am I?" Then Bruce grabs Talbot's hand and nearly crushes it while turning green, shocking Talbot. Bruce's enhanced strength hurls Talbot onto the couch, and Bruce transforms again. Hulk throws Talbot out of the house, and Ross's henchmen open fire, further angering Hulk and increasing his size. He then throws Talbot at a henchman, knocking them out and injuring Talbot's neck, and leaps off to find Betty. Betty encounters Bruce in his Hulk form; instead of being enraged, Hulk is calm and gentle with her. He places Betty in her car to protect her when the mutant dogs arrive, and then Hulk fights and kills them.
The following morning, Bruce gets tranquilized and taken to an enormous underground base in the desert. Betty convinces her father to let her try to help Bruce control his transformations since Ross now owes him for saving Betty. However, Ross remains extremely skeptical, believing Bruce is "damned" to follow in his father's footsteps. In the meantime, David breaks into the lab, subjecting himself to the nanomeds and the gammasphere, gaining the ability to meld with and absorb the properties of anything he touches.
Seeing a chance to profit from the Hulk's strength and regenerative abilities, Talbot wrestles control of operations from Ross. No longer in charge, Ross is forced to send Betty home. Talbot subdues Bruce and puts him in a sensory deprivation tank to trigger a transformation, planning to get a sample of the Hulk's DNA and weaponize his powers. Meanwhile, David Banner confronts Betty at her house and offers to turn himself in, asking to speak to Bruce "one last time" in exchange. Bruce awakens from an induced nightmare triggered by his repressed memories and transforms into the Hulk. Talbot's men trap Hulk in sticky foam, and he attempts to extract a sample from him, making Hulk grow bigger with his rage. As the Hulk escapes the hardened foam, Talbot uses a grenade launcher against him and gets himself killed.
The Hulk wrecks and escapes the base before battling the army in the desert, defeating four tanks and two Comanche Helicopters. He leaps to San Francisco to find Betty again. Betty contacts her father and convinces him to take her to the Hulk, believing he needs "a chance to calm down." Upon seeing Betty, Bruce's love for her comes through, and he returns to his human state.
David is allowed to visit the base and talk to Bruce that night. Having descended into megalomania, David fails to convince Bruce to help him destroy the military. David transforms into a powerful electrical being after biting into a wire and absorbing the energy, and Bruce becomes the Hulk again. It leads to a long fight between them, during which the Hulk overloads David with his power. Both are presumed dead after Ross orders a Gamma Charge Bomb, leaving no trace of either man.
A year later, Betty Ross and her father operate under close yet strained conditions as the general tries to balance his attempts to comfort his daughter's loss with his mission to find Bruce. As for Bruce, revealed to have survived, his goals are unclear; however, it seems that he's decided to direct his and the Hulk's abilities to helping those in need (very much like the TV series protagonist). Bruce is treating a boy in a South American jungle when guerrillas arrive and raid the camp, demanding the medicine. The leader speaks to Bruce, threatening him. He tells the leader in Spanish, "You're making me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." His eyes become green, a frog lands on top of his hat, and the camera zooms back to reveal the jungle as the Hulk's roar is heard in the distance, ending the movie.
Cast and characters[]
- Bruce is a brilliant but withdrawn Berkley-educated scientist, rarely expressing emotion even in extreme cases. Repressed memories of his tragic upbringing constantly haunt him through nightmares. Due to a scientific-related accident in which he intakes gamma radiation and activated nanomeds, Bruce transforms into the Hulk when rage and stress build in his mind.
- Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn as Betty as a child), Bruce's girlfriend/co-researcher, as well as the estranged daughter of General Ross:
- Betty is possibly the only way for the Hulk to lead back into his transformation of Bruce. Connelly was attracted to the role by way of director Ang Lee. "He's not talking about a guy running around in green tights and a glossy fun-filled movie for kids. He's talking along the lines of tragedy and psychodrama. I find it interesting, the green monster of rage and greed, jealousy and fear in all of us."
- Sam Elliott as General Thunderbolt Ross, a four-star general and estranged father of Betty:
- Ross was responsible for prohibiting David Banner from his lab work after learning about his dangerous experiments.
- Nick Nolte as David Banner, Bruce's mentally unstable biological father:
- He was also a genetics research scientist and had been locked away for 30 years for causing an explosion in the gamma reactor and accidentally killing his wife, Edith. He had experimented on himself to create a formula for improving Human DNA. However, his genes are mutated in the process and get passed on to Bruce. Before he can work on a cure for Bruce, General Ross, who found out about his years of self-experimentation, cited that it was "dangerous and stupid," has David shut down.
- Josh Lucas as Major Glenn Talbot, a ruthless former soldier, who offers Banner and Betty Ross an opportunity to work for him in an attempt to start an experiment on self-healing soldiers.
- Cara Buono as Edith Banner, Bruce's biological mother, whom he cannot remember but is heard and barely appears in most of Bruce's nightmares.
- Celia Weston as Mrs. Krenzler, Bruce's adoptive mother, who raised him after Edith's death and David's incarceration.
Hulk co-creator Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno make cameo appearances as security guards.
Development[]
Jonathan Hensleigh[]
In December 1992, Marvel Studios was in discussions with Universal Studios for a Hulk film adaptation. Michael France and Stan Lee were invited into Universal's offices in 1994, with France writing the script. Universal's concept was to have the Hulk battle terrorists, an idea France disliked. By late 1996, Gale Anne Hurd and her husband Jonathan Hensleigh signed on as producers. Industrial Light & Magic was hired to use computer-generated imagery to create the Hulk. For the second time, France was invited to write the script. By April 1997, Joe Johnston was directing with the film's title as The Incredible Hulk. Universal wanted Hensleigh to write the script since he worked with Johnston on the financially successful Jumanji. France was fired before he wrote a single page but received money from Universal. However, France still wanted to write the script.
Johnston dropped out of directing in July 1997 in favor of October Sky, paving the way for Hensleigh to have his directing debut. Hensleigh himself started from scratch, coming up with a brand-new storyline. In August 1997, Hensleigh completed his script, featuring Bruce Banner performing experiments with three gamma-irradiated insect DNA on convicts before the accident that turns him into The Hulk. The convicts soon transform into "insect men" that wreak havoc. John Turman was brought on to write two more drafts; the second one was rewritten by Zak Penn. Turman's script featured the Leader and Rick Jones, as well as the canonical atomic explosion origin from the comics. Penn's script featured a fight scene with the Hulk and a school of sharks.
Filming was scheduled to start in December 1997 in Arizona for a mid-1999 release date but was pushed back to April 1998. Hensleigh subsequently rewrote the script with J.J. Abrams. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski were also brought on board to rewrite, with Hensleigh still attached as director.[1] In October 1997, Hulk entered pre-production with the creation of prosthetic makeup and computer animation already underway. Gregory Sporleder was cast as "Novak," Banner's archenemy. Lynn "Red" Williams was cast as a convict who transforms into a combination of human, ant, and beetle. In March 1998, Universal put Hulk on hiatus due to its escalating $100 million budget and worries of Hensleigh directing his first film. Production already spent $20 million on script development, computer animation, and prosthetics work. Hensleigh immediately went to rewrite the script to lower the budget.
Michael France[]
Hensleigh found the rewriting process to be too complex and dropped out. It took eight months for France to convince Universal and the producers to let him try to write a script for the third time. France claimed, "Someone within the Universal hierarchy wasn't sure if this was a science-fiction adventure or a comedy, and I kept getting directions to write both. I think that at some point when I wasn't in the room, there may have been discussions about turning it into a Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler movie." France was writing the script on a fast track from July—September 1999. Filming for The Incredible Hulk was to start in April 2000.
France stated his vision for the film was different from the other drafts, which based Bruce Banner on his "amiable, nerdy genius" incarnation from the 1960s. France cited inspiration from the 1980s Hulk stories, which introduced Brian Banner, Bruce's abusive father who killed his mother. His script had Banner trying to create cells with regenerative capabilities to prove to himself that he's not like his father. However, he has anger management issues before the Hulk gets created, which worsens everything. The "Don't make me angry..." line from the TV series became dialogue that Banner's father would say before beating his son. Elements like the "Gammasphere," Bruce and Betty's tragic romance, and the black ops made it into the final film. France turned in his final drafts in late 2000 and January 2001 to a positive response from the producers.
Ang Lee[]
Michael Tolkin and David Hayter rewrote the script afterward. Hayter's draft featured The Leader, Zzzax and the Absorbing Man as the villains, who are depicted as colleagues of Banner and get caught in the same accident that creates the Hulk. Director Ang Lee and his producing partner James Schamus became involved with the film in January 2001. Schamus rewrote the script, merging Banner's father with the Absorbing Man to create a physical antagonist.
Bana was cast as Bruce Banner in October 2001; other actors heavily pursued the role. Schamus was still rewriting the script in October 2001. In early 2002, as filming was underway, Michael France read all the scripts for the Writers Guild of America to determine who would get final credit. France criticized Schamus and Hayter for claiming they aimed to make Banner a more in-depth character; France was saddened they trashed his work in interviews. He, Turman, and Schamus received final credit. Lee claimed to cite influences from King Kong, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Beauty and the Beast, Faust, and Greek mythology for his interpretation of the story. Schamus said he had found Peter David's storyline that introduced Brian Banner, thus allowing Lee to write a drama that again explored father-son themes. June 20, 2003, the theatrical release date was announced in December 2002, with the film's title as The Hulk.
Filming began on March 18, 2002, in Arizona. Several weeks later, it moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, shooting at Lawrence Berkeley labs, the Treasure Island military base, and the sequoia forests of Porterville, before several weeks in the Utah and Californian deserts. Filming then moved to the Universal backlot in Los Angeles, using Stage 12 for the water tank scene, before finishing in August. Eric Bana commented that the shoot was "Ridiculously serious... a silent set, morbid in a lot of ways." Lee told him he was shooting a Greek tragedy: making a "whole other movie" about the Hulk at Industrial Light and Magic. Lee took many takes of each scene, and one example of his arthouse approach to the film was taking Bana to watch a bare-knuckle boxing match.
Reception[]
Hulk was released on June 20, 2003, earning $62.1 million in its opening weekend, making it the 16th highest ever opener at the time. With a second-weekend drop of 70%, Hulk was the first opener above $20 million to drop over 65%. The film grossed $132.2 in North America, and $113.2 in foreign countries, coming to a worldwide total of $245.4 million. However, poor word of mouth spread, and it never recovered. Hulk failed to recoup its $137 million budget since it did not make more than $274 million. With a final North American gross of $132.2 million, it became the largest opener to fail to earn $150 million.
Hulk received mixed but mostly positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes calculated 61% of critics gave positive reviews, although only 53% of reviews from selected notable reviewers were positive. By comparison, Metacritic collected an average score of 54 based on 41 reviews. Roger Ebert gave a largely positive review, explaining, "Ang Lee is trying to actually deal with the issues in the story of the Hulk, instead of simply cutting to brainless visual effects." Ebert also liked how the Hulk's movements resembled King Kong. Although Peter Travers of Rolling Stone felt Hulk should have been shorter, he heavily praised the action sequences, especially the climax and cliffhanger. Paul Clinton of CNN believed the cast gave strong performances, but in an otherwise positive review, heavily criticized the computer-generated imagery, calling the Hulk "a ticked-off version of Shrek."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle considered "the film is more thoughtful and pleasing to the eye than any blockbuster in recent memory, but its epic length comes without an epic reward." Ty Burr of The Boston Globe felt, "Jennifer Connelly reprises her stand-by-your-messed-up-scientist turn from A Beautiful Mind." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly stated, "a big-budget comic-book adaptation has rarely felt so humorless and intellectually defensive about its own pulpy roots." Connelly and Danny Elfman received nominations at the 30th Saturn Awards with Best Actress and Best Music. The film was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film but lost out to X2. Dennis Muren, Michael Lantieri, and the special effects crew were nominated for Best Special Effects.
Reboot[]
Marvel Studios reacquired the film rights to the character, and they put a sequel to the film into development, with the film set to feature the Abomination. Eventually, the sequel was scrapped, and Marvel made a reboot in 2008, The Incredible Hulk.
Galleries[]
Hulk Movie Official Magazine[]
Hulk: The Official Movie Adaptation[]
Fan Art[]
References[]
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