Hulk Movie Article: HULKamania
The director was more involved than you might think in bringing the green giant to the screen
LOS ANGELES -- It was an amusing-but-perplexing moment at a preview screening of Hulk at Universal Studios. Opening the film, Ang Lee, the unimposing, soft-spoken director spoke thus in heavily accented English.
"If this movie sucks, it is my fault ... because I am the Hulk."
It all became clear the next morning during a presentation by Industrial Light &Magic of the envelope-pushing process that made Marvel Comics' 15-foot mountain of rage come alive.
Included in behind-the-scenes footage were shots of Lee standing on a table, festooned in wires, his Zen-like face contorted in full vein-popping apoplexy. He was grinding his teeth like an ungulate, arms and legs spread like a Mini-me sumo wrestler on the verge of breaking the rules and throwing his first punch in anger.
Lee, it turned out, was being literal at the screening. He actually was the Hulk, or at least the Hulk's anger template. Last year, in a display of micromanagement almost alien to Hollywood, Lee wrapped principal photography on Hulk, with actors Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte, then spent eight months in the Bay Area to personally oversee the effects. Eventually, rather than try to communicate what he was looking for, he took on the role and probably exorcised a few demons in the process.
"Ang was always saying, he was making a delicacy out of American fast food," says Wilson Tang, the Scarborough-born visual-effects art director who worked with Lee through his anger-management sessions. The quote comes as close as anything else to answering why an acclaimed Oscar-winning art-film director (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Ride With The Devil, Sense And Sensibility) would decide to direct a $130-million wannabe blockbuster based on yet another comic book.
Lee puts his face in his hands when I mention the "fast food" comment. "They promised me they wouldn't repeat that," he murmurs, with a tone of embarrassment.
As for his alter-ego, he quips cheerily, "Yes, I am the Hulk. I hope you like me when I'm angry."
In the beginning (the early '60s), there was Marvel Comics, the realm of Spider-Man, Daredevil, The X-Men and their ilk, superheroes with emotional baggage, and veritable black clouds over their heads.
Among the first characters to poke through the existential gloom in 1962 was the Hulk (or The Incredible Hulk as he'd later be known), a monster created from the effects of an errant gamma-ray blast. Introduced in a six-issue series by Marvel creator Stan Lee and artist legend Jack Kirby, it told the tale of nerdy scientist Bruce Banner, whose inhibitions (including his resentment towards a domineering father) were set loose, creating a creature of rage. Said monster was grey in the beginning, but eventually became the not-so-jolly green giant of pop-culture fame.
Despite the image stamped in people's memories by Lou Ferrigno, Bill Bixby and the '70s TV series, the comic book Hulk was much wilder in his dimensions and abilities. He was variously drawn between 10 and 15 feet high, and could leap for miles (accompanied by a big b-thoom! comic-book sound effect) and survive artillery explosions. At times he was mute, at others articulate. And Hollywood cast at least as covetous an eye on him as it did on a certain Marvel webslinger.
Producer Gale Anne Hurd (Armageddon, Terminator 2) acquired the rights to the Hulk in 1991, "and there've been different incarnations of the project since, driven by who was in charge of the studio at the time. But with the limitations of digital effects in 1991, just coming off Terminator 2, I'm really thankful it took this long to make. We're able to make a film in which the lead is actually the character. You'd never have been able to look in his eyes, you'd never have seen a performance."
Of course, there are people in this movie too. Nick Nolte plays Bruce's crazed father whose unprincipled genetic experiments on himself and, indirectly, on his offspring, set the stage for the gamma craziness to come. Straight off her Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, Jennifer Connelly plays Bruce's sometime girlfriend Betty Ross. Her co-star from that movie, Josh Lucas, plays Glen Talbot, an ex-boyfriend who's trying to steal Bruce's genetic experiments for evil corporate use. Sam Elliott is Betty's dad, Gen. Thunderbolt Ross.
And Bruce himself is played by Eric Bana, a relative unknown in North America, but a famous comic actor in his native Australia. Ironically, his only exposure here (in Black Hawk Down and the indie chiller Chopper) has been pretty dour. Lee was turned on by Bana's portrayal of a serial killer in Chopper and held onto his choice against a studio that initially wanted a "name" star.
"In the comic book, nobody cares about Bruce Banner," Lee says. "He's a wimp, he's a nerd. That's okay for looking at paper. But in movies, you watch for two hours. You have to care for him enough, so I want somebody to care for ... Bruce Banner and the Hulk himself."
"Also, I want a fresh face to play a franchise."
Which is the rub, of course. All the actors in Hulk (but not director Lee) have signed on for two more sequels.
Which means a lot more of "Elvis," the cardboard Hulk-on-a-stick against which the actors acted. In the case of Talbot -- who gets his comeuppance from the Hulk in a major way -- the ratio was "probably 70% acting and 30% the other stuff," Lucas says.
The other stuff, in his case, involved being wired up -- both electronically and aerobatically -- and throwing himself around a room for hours to simulate Talbot's maiming and manhandling. "Oh my God, I was demolished on a daily basis," Lucas says. "Ang learned a massive amount about the ballet of wirework on Crouching Tiger and it figured tremendously in terms of the way he puts together stunts. It became about how to use the wires to really make it look like something was throwing me, even though I was the one doing it. You're twisting and turning your body without having anything to push off of. Honestly, I wasn't in particularly good shape, so that's probably why I got as beat up and exhausted as I was."
On the other hand, Bana says, "I'm a bit of a sucker for punishment, so I think I actually enjoyed the arduous nature of it. I don't know if that comes from the kind of self-punishing standup comedy world, but there's something satisfying about being professionally challenged and, as Ang would say, beaten up."
The accomplished mimic falls into a heavy Chinese accent as he imitates Lee: " 'Okay, I'm going to beat you up again today! Lots of takes! Lots of takes!' You get weirdly attracted to it after a while."
Everybody involved seems convinced they've made something deeper than the u