Louis Leterrier's 2008 MCU earlier that same year with Iron Man, it was seen as seen as one of the biggest gambles in the history of Hollywood. The studio was an unproven one, and it had self-financed production of its first few movies in a deal that meant it risked losing the film rights for its characters if things didn't work out. A decade later, of course, Marvel has become the single highest grossing franchise in the history of the Hollywood box office.
There have been stumbles along the way, of course. Behind-the-scenes drama caused major problems during production of Phase 2, ultimately leading to Disney forcing a corporate restructure in 2015 that shut down the old Marvel Creative Committee. Sometimes creative decisions have backfired, with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige openly stating his regret for whitewashing Doctor Strange's Ancient One. Most recently, Eternals' disappointing critical performance has led to heated debate about the film's quality and intense interest in its predicted box office performance. But Marvel's biggest disappointment was actually in the first year of the MCU, with The Incredible Hulk.
The scale of disappointment surrounding Edward Norton's Hulk movie is indicated in The Story of Marvel Studios, a new book from Tara Bennett and Paul Terry. The section on The Incredible Hulk points to the weight of expectation that rested upon the film, as the Hulk was already a household name, whereas Iron Man was perceived to be only really known by hardcore comic readers at that time. "In that context it's easier to see how Marvel Studios' The Incredible Hulk was treated as their great hope for box-office success," the book explained, "while Iron Man was viewed as more of a cool, experimental movie." Despite this, Bruce Banner's MCU debut only grossed $264.8 million worldwide in comparison to Iron Man's much more impressive $585.8 million. But what went wrong?
What Went Wrong With The Incredible Hulk?
It's important to place The Incredible Hulk in its proper context. The irony with a pre-established brand is that viewers already have a sense of what to expect from a movie based on the character, and so aren't as engaged. That problem was particularly acute in this case, given Marvel and Universal had already released a Hulk movie in the last decade. With hindsight, Marvel Studios has come to understand there's an interest in telling a story that's never been told before, or in introducing a hero who's never been seen on the big screen. That reasoning has led to the production of unique films like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and the more recent Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings. But back in 2008, Marvel had yet to realize this bold strategy would become key to their enormous financial success. There's a sense in which the Hulk was the "safe" option, and thus less engaging.
Production of Hulk's film was also troubled, with Marvel struggling to find the right tone. This is perfectly represented by the studio's decision to cut what was originally The Incredible Hulk's opening scene, in which Bruce Banner attempts to commit suicide. This would have certainly set a much darker tone for the movie, leading the scene to ultimately be cut despite being expensive to shoot. Meanwhile, years later, the movie is perhaps best ed for the behind-the-scenes conflict between Marvel Studios and leading star Edward Norton, who rewrote scripts during production and clashed with the studio's more commercial approach to filmmaking. Post-production seems to have been chaotic to say the least, with rumors of clashes between Marvel, director Louis Leterrier, and Edward Norton finally going mainstream.
Norton ultimately addressed these rumors in a public statement, stressing that "every good movie gets forged through collaboration." The actor was heavily critical of said rumors bogging down perception of the film. "Our healthy process," he insisted, "which is and should be a private matter, was misrepresented publicly as a 'dispute,' seized on by people looking for a good story, and has been distorted to such a degree that it risks distracting from the film itself." He was certainly right to note all this was hardly good press for The Incredible Hulk, a problem that wasn't at all helped by Universal's lackluster marketing of The Incredible Hulk.
Iron Man Blazed A Different Trail
Marvel had initially believed The Incredible Hulk would be their big hit, defining them as a studio. As production continued, though, they began to realize things weren't playing out how they had expected; attention was increasingly focused on Iron Man as the more interesting franchise. Marvel's Stephen Broussard its this had something of an impact on him as he worked on The Incredible Hulk. "There was a nervousness, personally for me, of feeling, in a lot of ways, like the runner-up as I watched the excitement of Iron Man grow," he observes in The Story of Marvel Studios. It seems quite telling that Kevin Feige re driving home from Iron Man's theatrical premiere thinking about The Incredible Hulk instead. "I was probably spending the whole time thinking about what we had to do in The Incredible Hulk," he recalls when speaking to Bennett and Terry.
In the end, 2008's success story was not Hulk's debut in the MCU, but rather Tony Stark's, and there's a strong sense in which that film—with its street smart humor, wisecracking hero, and spectacular effects—set the "House Style" for Marvel Studios going forward. Marvel seem to have realized this straight away, because just four days after Iron Man's release they committed to the whole slate of Phase 1 films. It's certainly interesting to note that even then, before rights issues became a problem with Hulk solo movies, they weren't planning to do another movie based on the character until after 2012.
Ultimately, the whole direction set by The Incredible Hulk was largely abandoned. Edward Norton was famously recast as Mark Ruffalo, and even ing cast like William Hurt's General "Thunderbolt" Ross did not resurface again until 2016's Captain America: Civil War. The Incredible Hulk had been expected to be a hit, but instead it was overshadowed by Robert Downey Jr. and the MCU's more popular Iron Man, and it would take Marvel years to really begin feeling confident enough to openly acknowledge it in their ongoing narrative again.
