Not So Incredible

I remember being a senior and high school when I first saw the preview for The Hulk. I was extremely excited for the summer to roll around seeing as how any Marvel movie was always worth my time and my nine dollars. I also remember that up until The Hulk, I had purchased ever Marvel movie on DVD. Like I said though, up until The Hulk....

I will be the first to admit that I was wooed by the ways of Hollywood and once again feel prey to a heavily marketed movie with a crappy story line. The Hulk did considerably well it's first week, bringing in about $62 million opening weekend. What looked like a promising start though soon dwindled into a downward spiral of failure. Thanks to the o-so-great word of mouth tactic, sales and viewings of the movie began to drop substantially. The movie brought in around $245 million overall when the dust had settled, but the reputation of the movie had taken a much harder hit.

I guess it should not have been such a huge shocker for me then when I noticed that Marvel studios announced that they will be producing another Hulk story, titled The Incredible Hulk.
To the naked eye, this idea seems like a poor choice on the part of Marvel to try to pick up where they left off and save the movie from extinction entirely. However, taking a closer look, you can see how Marvel production company has taken the necessary steps to place this movie out of the shadow the The Hulk, and into a spotlight all of its own.

I guess the easiest way to look at this is by comparing Batman with Batman Begins. Same characters, but completely different storyline (the original Batman will always be the best). Sad to say, Eric Bana will not be returning to play Bruce Banner. Edward Norton instead will lead the cast along with Liv Tyler replacing Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross.

The coolest thing about this movie is that it is not totally disregarding the previous movie, but definitely not following in its footsteps. The creators have the "learn from our mistakes" attitudes when it comes to this film. They will use the first movie to get the idea of the Hulk's origins out of the way and build from there. A few things they are changing in this movie is a smaller, more believable different shade of green hulk.

So far, little marketing has been taken place. It will be interesting to see how the general public responds to the marketing tactics seeing as how many viewers still feel cheated from the last film. A web site was recently posted up with no more than the storyline of the new movie to offer up to viewers. A poster for the movie has also been released and showed off at the 2007 New York City Licensing Show.

Some common things to look for in the coming months include a teaser trailer (finally) as well as more descriptive movie poster. I then assume things such as video games and action figures, followed by a soundtrack featuring the latest "cool" bands. But who knows, I could be wrong (rarely happens).