As the Marvel motion-picture Universe marches towards the release of The Avengers
in 2012, we’ll soon start getting a better idea how the studio wants to
handle all the newfound energy the smaller character will theoretically
gain. The Hulk has seen two modern attempts at launching a movie
franchise and while neither were outright catastrophes, neither took
hold in a meaningful way. Deadline has the story
that Marvel and ABC are beginning development on a TV series centered
around The Hulk, and that the place for the big green ball of poorly
managed anger is in your living room during primetime. To help them
figure the series out, the studios have apparently enlisted the help of
the most happily overbooked man in show business, Guillermo Del Toro.
Joining him will be Battlestar Galactica
exec producer David Eick, with the two arranging the story, concepts,
and outlines together, and Eick ultimately writing the scripts.
Per Deadline:
“Del
Toro and Eick will break the story for the pilot script together,
sharing story and created by credit. Eick will write the script, with
del Toro attached to direct subject to his availability. Del Toro will
also oversee the designing of the Hulk character, which is expected to
draw on previous comic book incarnations, as well as the original
1978-82 Incredible Hulk TV series, with a few wild tweaks on the old
look.”
The
Hulk is, of course, Marvel’s big gamma-irradiated beast that haunts the
milder-tempered Bruce Banner, taking him over with strength and frenzy
proportional to his anger. The show will apparently employ a mixed bag
of tricks to bring the monster to the screen- a Hellboy-sounding mix of prosthetics, costumes, puppetry, and CGI.
From
where I sit, this is probably the best-case scenario for the character.
It’s blatantly obvious that a big green smear of pixels throwing around
and breaking through other pixels in movie theaters isn’t lighting
anyone’s interest on fire, but handing the concept over to the smaller
screen at least creates the potential for an interesting story centered
around the blatant metaphors inherent in the concept. The original show
is well-liked, and I would be shocked if Guillermo wasn’t at least some
sort of a fan. Eick brings a lot of goodwill with the reputation of the
triumphantly successful Battlestar
backing him. The timeline makes sense, and it’s actually feasible that
Guillermo could fit this into his schedule in a few years, and hopefully
he’ll have the momentum of a successful Marvel Cinematic U behind him.
We’re still a lot of seasons, schedule changes, and Captain America/Thor
box office weekends away from any lasting movement on this, but it’s a
good sign to see Marvel continuing the same farsighted approach to their
characters, and a continued dedication to involving the best filmmakers
a geek could want.