Edward Norton as The Hulk
Universal Pictures has released a couple of official pictures from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.
As you can see, Edward Norton has taken Eric Bana’s place as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler will replace Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross, and William Hurt will be picking up the role of General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross from Sam Elliott. Tim Roth will play the villain as The Abomination.
Though technically a sequel to Ang Lee’s poorly received Hulk, Louis Leterrier’s 2008 film has been called a “non-sequel” and is generally considered to be a re-boot of the franchise. Leterrier says in a WizardUniverse.com interview :
“It’s a fresh start because I saw there is a real fan base for Ang Lee’s movie. I didn’t want to offend [those fans] in any way, and also I like the movie. It was very interesting. [But] it was weaker ground to build a big franchise upon so we decided to scrap it and establish it from bases that are more comic book-based and TV show-based.”
“Obviously, General Ross is the villain, so he had to be in it…but the Abomination, Emil Blonsky, was who Marvel wanted to put in this chapter — the first chapter of our new saga — because he’s the most famous. He’s an enemy that can actually threaten the Hulk. It’s very important for me that there is a danger. When Bruce Banner is Hulk, I didn’t feel in Ang Lee’s ‘Hulk’ that there was any threat. He was invincible. So with Abomination there’s actually a monster that can, you know, kill him when he’s in the Hulk form.”
And in a related note, a belated Happy Birthday to Stan Lee, born December 28!
