Titilating 2-Parter with Hulk Movie Screenwriter

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COUNTDOWN TO HULK: SCREENWRITER JOHN TURMAN TALKS ABOUT A FAN’S DREAM JOB

Screenwriter John Turman may be a kind of unsung hero of the comics-to-film movement. He's been writing and pitching comic-based fare for Hollywood well ahead of the boom of the last five years. He's written screenplays for "Iron Fist," "Silver Surfer," "Prime," and "Buck Rogers." He was a consultant on the syndicated TV series "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven."

Before all that he landed his first big screenwriting job on what may prove to be one of this summer's biggest blockbusters: "The Hulk." Turman's involvement has largely been underreported until recently, when the Writers Guild of America determined that he, along with Michael France and James Schamus, contributed significantly to the finished script for the film.

"It's very funny because 'The Hulk' was actually the first major studio project that I did and it's only now getting made," Turman told Comics2Film/CBR News in a recent interview. "It should be a real lesson to people who think that writing for film is this romantic pursuit."

DREAM JOB

Turman was the very first screenwriter to take a crack at the material, following a pitch meeting in 1995. He was working with then-Universal executive Carr D'Angelo ("The Hot Chick"), and after a debate over the physics of time travel, they realized that they were both fans of comics. D'Angelo told Turman that Universal was trying to do "The Hulk."

Even though Universal was looking for a big-name writer to work the project, D'Angelo got the newcomer in the door to pitch his ideas to Stan Lee and producer Gale Anne Hurd.

"I felt I knew how to do it and I wrote up a few pages thinking that they would just buy the pages for a grand and tell me to get lost," Turman said.

As a first-time writer he had no delusions that he was in the running for the job. He even brought along his of Hulk #1, which he'd gotten autographed by Jack Kirby at a previous convention. "[After the pitch] I was so sure that I wasn't going to get the job that I took out my beat up copy of Hulk #1 and said to Stan, 'I'll never see you again, so could you please sign this?'"

Turman said that not really feeling like he was a serious contender freed him up to just speak from his enthusiasm about the character and the project, rather than worrying about the presentation itself.

"I think it helped that I was such a legitimate fan, that I could really talk comics with Stan Lee," Turman said. "I knew the difference between a comic and a film and I could talk movies with the producers and the studio. I focused on the difference between a popular comic series that's run 400 issues and a self-contained story that makes or breaks a film."

Shortly the fledgling writer got the call that the producers wanted him to work n the project. The longtime Hulk fan landed his first big studio job working on a passion project. "It was a dream come true."

CREATIVE DECISIONS

Turman worked on the script for nearly two years, turning in about ten drafts. His takes were heavily influenced by the "Tales to Astonish" issues, which pitted the Hulk against General Ross and the military.

"The idea of setting it on a military installation, the idea of making Ross and Talbot and Betty a big part of Banner's life and the Hulk's life hadn't been done in the series on television," Turman said. "I saw it as Jekyll and Hyde at Los Alamos or Lawrence Livermore."

Turman said he also tried to incorporate one element from scribe Peter David's acclaimed run on the comic.

"I tried to work in the Hulk's father. I always felt that the human element of the Hulk is the most interesting element," Turman said. "What is the source of this guy's pain and anger?"

The studio was not so taken with the idea. Although Turman pushed to have the father figure in the story, eventually he was ordered to eliminate it.

"I was not able to sell them on making that a bigger part of the film," Turman said. However all was not lost for Banner's father. "I had completed my work by the time Ang Lee came on, but when I heard that that was an important part of it to him, I was very encouraged. I was thrilled as a fan of these characters, more than I was thrilled as a screenwriter."

Ultimately Banner's father, played actor Nick Nolte in the film, has a significant role in the story.

LETTING GO

By 1997, Turman was off the project. He would be followed by almost a dozen additional writers, each trying to shape the Hulk into a big-screen hero. For a fan, working on something you're so invested in is a mixed blessing.

"There's the old saw about 'be careful what you wish for.' When I was starting out I could not have imagined a more dream job than the chance to adapt the Hulk for a movie," Turman told us. "But doing it was very painful because it meant a lot to me as a kid and you become attached. You soon realize that it's a group effort, that it's not yours. The attachment can break your heart."

Although he was no longer actively involved, Turman kept an eye on the project, wondering if his work would make it into a final film. "At different times I gave up hope because there were other drafts by other writers that went very far a field of what I'd done."

But when cameras rolled, many of the characters and concepts that the screenwriter brought into the first drafts remained in the movie. "When I read the final draft I was surprised by how much of my work was still there, sometimes in a different form than I had chosen, but there were the same tone, characters, relationships, key scenes, even some dialogue. As the arbitration process bore out, it was enough to reflect that I was one of the three primary writers.

"That confirmed that a lot of my choices were good choices, similar to the choices that were made by other people whose work I respect. It was great to see that Ang Lee and James Schamus had chosen to return to the concepts and characters that I had focused on. Ang Lee ultimately rejected screenplay drafts that took the character far afield from his roots and returned to what I feel makes the Hulk such an enduring modern myth. It's a validation, but like everything else in the film industry, it's never without some bittersweetness. Films are a collaboration and I've had to accept that even though credited first, I perhaps won't get the same recognition for my work that writers or producers who came after, and saw the film through production, will. Those are the realities of the business. Thankfully in this case, I'm a big fan of the work Schamus did on the script, and u

EarthsMightiestAdmin
6/5/2003
Comics2Film

Titilating 2-Parter with Hulk Movie Screenwriter

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