They Love Whining In France…
Congratulations to 42West for spinning the ever-spinnable C. Nikki Finke for the second time on the Edward Norton/Hulk non-story in a very slow news week.
Just a couple of quick comments…
1) I defended Edward Norton and Mike DeLuca from attacks by an out-of-control Tony Kaye when the first big buzz about Norton sticking his nose in the editing room started on American History X. The only reason that there was “an Edward Norton cut” is because Tony wasn’t happy releasing his first cut, which tested very well.
2) Norton is a wonderful actor.
3) Norton has had “issues” with his director and/or producers on almost every single film he has been in since, leading to a five year break from any studio work other than a supporting role behind a mask in Kingdom of Heaven. (And his performance, ween at greater length in the “director’s cut” was as great as his truncated work in the release version was not.)
4) The Incredible Hulk will not sell more than $500,000 worth of tickets on the planet because Edward Norton is the star of the film. He may or may not have improved the film with his input, but as a movie star, he is now a non-starter at the box office.
5) No one who will go see this comic book movie has a major interest in whether it is artful. (Doesn’t anyone remember Ang Lee getting slaughtered for bringing his artistic vision to the big green man?) They care if The Hulk is cool and in the spirit of the character they love. Period.
Edward Norton is, no doubt, a talent. But he needs to just put up, shut up, and write and direct his movies himself with small budgets until he earns bigger budgets with financial success as a writer/director. Or he could act like the movie star he could be and do that job instead of endlessly indulging his fantasy of what that job is.
In the meanwhile, by continuing to push out these stories of him being wronged (and really, who the hell else do you think wants you to know about it… unless this is some inverted plot to destroy Norton’s studio viability once and for all?), he is doing exactly what studios will not put up with… an insider screwing his own movie that they paid him for before it is release. In other words, exactly what has kept Tony Kaye from working in this town since American History X.
Fortunately for Universal, stories in gossip columns won’t have much effect on this film’s gross either. But if you’re looking forward to his next Universal film… you will likely have a long, long wait.
Sounds like he’s being positively diplomatic on this one when compared to, say, Italian Job, which he publicly groused about before the fact like was a jury summons. One the one hand, one has to wonder what’s so terrible about being “forced” to make a movie with Charlize Theron and Mark Wahlberg… on the other, you gotta respect that intensity and passion for doing quality work and not being afraid to speak up.
Did he have any (known) scuffles on Down in the Valley? He was terrific in that, and seemed pretty jovial with the director on the extras.
Hey, wait, Nikki’s blog allows COMMENTS? She’d probably enjoy my musings!
Be wary… she edits the comments.
She’s a lunatic that does way more harm than good. Just look at this situation. By making a relatively small squabble public she poured gasoline on a fire. She did the same thing with the strike, getting us all riled up every two seconds. The funniest thing is when she shoehorns her opinions on specific movies (that she hasn’t seen) into her articles. Okay, actually, it’s much funnier when she acts like she knows if an upcoming film is any good based on either non-existent buzz, her “instincts,” or something a person involved with a movie fed her.
Best example:
“Get Smart is in big trouble. It doesn’t deliver the funny, unlike Fred Claus which is hilarious.”
The Norton-Farrell “Pride and Glory” is delayed AGAIN? Now IMDB says 2009. What’s the scoop on that movie?
It probably isn’t very good.
Shelved indefinitely when New Line got swallowed up by Warner Bros.
As a self-professed comic and film geek, I have always been bored by the Hulk as a character.
To me he is one of the most boring characters in the Marvel Canon.
Am I alone on this?
No, THX. You’re not. Hulk’s problem has ALWAYS been that he just is a one domensional character. There’s no Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent pent up angst to him. At least, to me there never was.
FWIW: Jeff Wells posted a pretty positive review of P&G on his site. Of course you can take that with a grain of salt (as I do with what both Wells and Poland like).
The Hulk was “different” and interesting when introduced because Stan Lee and Jack Kirby reimagined Jekyll and Hyde as an atomic age fable. I read the original books as reprints in the 80’s as a kid and loved, loved, loved them.
The Hulk has NOT always been a one dimensional character.
Seriously, what is wrong with Norton? The man should have already won an Oscar, become a bigger star and be a regular Oscar contender. Instead he barely shows up in movies and complains about the ones he is in. He needs to shut up and work.
The Hulk is a totally, totally boring character and although I love the TV show (even today…it’s still entertaining!) I just don’t see how this movie brings anything really exciting to the screen that we haven’t seen in a multitude of other movies.
The studio totally got this one wrong. The comics isn’t where they should be looking for source material. The TV show and the 1980s cartoon to a lesser extent means more to most people than the comics. Play that sad piano music from the tv show and you hvae instant recognition with anyone over 28. Universal owns eough tv channels that they could stoke the fires with a full run of the tv show leading up to the release of the movie. Why they never do this I’ll never understand. Norton’s not a bad choice for this but I want him to just act. He bitched about the Italian Job but I actually liked the movie and would have liked it more if he didn’t look like he wanted to be somewhere else every second he was in it. BTW wasn’t that his last box office hit? If he got along with the director of Down in the Valley I’m not surprised I thought was really self-indulgent. But to his credit I liked the Rabbi/Priest movie that he directed. Showed some real promise I thought.
I don’t think the bare bones material in The Hulk is really that boring as much as the execution of it. The best Hulk movie ever made, but never made as a Hulk movie, is The Ninth Configuration with Stacey Keach. Especially for the finale in the biker bar.
Tfresca: they pretty much have a two-minute video that Chud posted the other day, that details how much the TV show means to this movie. Hell. Go look at the poster. It’s clearly HULK TV SHOW inspired.
The thing of it is: the Hulk is only boring if you do not get the inherent fear in losing all control. Banner lives every day of his life (especially in those trippy Art Adams books) fearful that he loses control, someone gets hurt, and he cannot stop himself. It’s the fear that keeps him from snapping, but occassionally fear does not stop him. This leads to rage. Uncontrollable, world conquering, earth-stompin, RAGE, and that’s interesting.
Referring to the HULK as boring. Ranks right up there with the people who think Supes is boring. ALL-STAR SUPERMAN TO THOSE PEOPLE! Yes this paragraph is not coherent but the point of the new HULK comic is the RAGE UNDER CONTROL AND USED AS A WEAPON. Thus another good twist on this character.
IO-I agree with what you said about the inherent terror in “losing control,” but maybe that’s why the TV show was so great. You saw Banner every week-and it certainly didn’t hurt that he was played by the very likable Bill Bixby (and THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER mental image helped as well I bet)-so you developed a sense of sympathy for the guy.
You ALWAYS knew the episode would end badly and he’d be thumbing it down the road while some single mom and her kid wondered what the hell happened. A 2 hour movie, at least thus far/what appears to be coming can’t do that. Hence the twist you mentioned that was made to make this snoozer into a franchise.
I’m still gonna see it opening weekend, but I don’t hold out much hope. Even though that poster rules. Well, rules for TV Hulk fans.
“Fortunately for Universal, stories in gossip columns won’t have much effect on this film’s gross either”
That remains to be seen. “Gossip” can turn into real world bad buzz pretty quick.
So then who’s going to get blamed when the movie bombs?
Will they blame Marvel for ruining Norton’s vision or Norton for ruining Marvel’s property?
Norton essentially tries to take over every movie he appears in. Anyone who signs him for a picture without knowing this is an ass.
i disagree that the hulk is a de facto boring character. peter david tackled the character well in his run, linking the change as to a form of split personality (adding a smarter persona then just hulk smash). bruce jones tackled it from a jason bourne kinda angle. greg pak took the hulk to another planet where he became a ruler only to lose it all.
the complaints come from the fans of the hulk smash type that just like to see the hulk bust stuff up. that, to me, is boring. and despite norton’s insistence to the opposite is all i’m seeing in the previews.
Lesterg… people forget… the very bad buzz around The Hulk still led to a $62 million opening.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry was slammed… and opened to $34 million.
Wild Hogs… $40 million.
Ghost Rider – $45 million.
The thing we all tend to forget on the media site is that we live in a bubble and marketing wins, first and last.
It’s even more off-center in the geek world, where there is a life-and-death assumption when the truth is, most big movies that geeks are buzzing badly about will still draw ticket sales from that core… because they are the group that always wants to see for themselves so they can argue the point.
Norton’s script is very artsy and overwritten; basically The Hulk 2. It starts a little while after where the last film left off. This is not the “re-imagining” Norton/others are making it out to be — it’s a fucking sequel.
Why was this man given so much power?
JBM – Norton was given clout because the credit line to self-finance had just closed and the perception was Marvel Films was going to be the Lionsgate of superhero movies. Signing Norton showed they were serious while Punisher2 shows they’ve been mugged by reality.
The problem for Marvel came when Arad stepped aside. He still has involvement, but not like before. I’ve read PR pieces where some of the new players are getting credit for the self-financing and whatnot, but that was Arad’s play from several years ago, after they sued for Spidey profits. He either wanted to go totally independent or merge like Pixar, so they ended up with the Columbia deal which is a mash of both.
This movie is actually a looming problem with the current credit disaster. 500Mil for all productions, with A&M covered by the distributor which splits the receipts and in return, they have a large chunk of the trademark catalog on the line. What looks foreseeable is Iron Man will cover Hulk’s losses and then they’ll move IM to the Columbia deal which Arad tried before Fav’s got on board, IIRC, (Murphy could clear that up).
Where Marvel screwed up with Inc Hulk is not Norton, but the director. Just like a ball team, if the talent doesn’t respect the coach, the season ends up in a quagmire. Norton wouldn’t pull this with a director who has reverence from other actors. Make it Cronenberg instead of Leterier(sp) and you’d have a different result. I didn’t hear about this on Fight Club or 25th Hour, but I could be wrong.
As for the Bixby/Ferrigno TV show argument, besides the theme song, which I believe they secured the rights to, (The Lonely Man, IIRC), there is nothing to utilize. The show was simply a riff on the Bionic Man, except the scientist becomes Bigfoot. The whole Jekyll/Hyde/Frankenstein hybrid that Lee and Kirby came up with was jettisoned for something that fit the “In Search Of…” vibe of the 70’s. The other problem is that the show sucked, but because Bixby died, it became his life’s work so no one wants to admit it. Like Donner’s Superman, people want to capture nostalgia in a bottle.
The should have given it to Milius. He could have reinvented Banner/Hulk as a modern-day ronin like he did with Conan. And instead of Norton, I would have gone for Paxton or more likely Olyphant because no one does pent-up rage better than that guy.
“The show was simply a riff on the Bionic Man”
Don’t forget The Prisoner. But yeah, hiring a second-rate action guy was clearly an overreaction to the Ang Lee situation where they got burned by an auteur, but look where it’s gotten them.
A Milius Hulk would have been great – he would have known that you have to actually blow shit up and smash things real good, in a cathartic way.