MTV has a quite good article on the possibility of seeing another Hulk appearance in the near future. Marvel honcho Kevin Feige is high on the reboot / reimagining / rewhatever that Incredible Hulk turned out to be, but isn’t necessarily drawing up immediate plans for a sequel: ‘We have a Hulk that we can be proud of and that is a better match and fits more with the tone of what had been in our comics.” Furthermore, “When we set out to do this, it was a very big deal for us. It was a big deal getting the character back, it was a big deal having it be the second of the films we were going to do ourselves, and we really had two goals in mind,” he added. “One was to make even a dollar more than the first one did, so we could justify that we had done it from a financial aspect, and the other one was to bring a Hulk to the screen that a broader fanbase could enjoy. The good news is, we accomplished both.”
From those standpoints, I can agree, although I’m torn between the two film versions so far. As Banner, Edward Norton was much more enjoyable than Eric Bana, at least for my money, as was the way that his character was laid out than in Ang Lee’s version. Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky also was a highlight for the second film. William Hurt vs. Sam Elliott was kind of a wash for me, with possibly the characterization edge going to Hurt’s Ross than Elliott’s. But in terms of Betty Ross, I just couldn’t buy Liv Tyler over the work that Jennifer Connelly did. No one version of the film was eminently preferable to me over the other, because the second lacked anything comparable to Lee’s desert sequence and the final fight with the Abomination didn’t live up to hype that I had previously heard about it.
So although Feige and the Marvel Gang consider the reboot a success, there are currently no concrete plans to have a sequel pounding celluloid anytime soon, although further installments of other properties, most notably Iron Man are barrelling ahead at full steam. It could be that the reported angle of having Hulk vs. the Avengers could be the most logical step for the character to go, though, unfortunately, I’m not going to hold my breath till I’m green that Edward Norton will be anywhere near it. Feige added fuel to this rumor by saying, “I would expect that people may see the Hulk again soon before he is again carrying his own film.”
So we’ll have to engage in that honored fan tradition of wait and see. To help with that, check out Nick’s take on the DVD, premiering today.