Hulk Film Tussle Continues
One of the best blogs about the Hollywood machine is Nikki Finke's deadlinehollywooddaily.com. It is filled with all kinds of insider information regarding the business behind the media we all eat up.
Today the blog reports on the continuing battle behind the scenes on the newest Hulk film staring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, and Tim Roth.
Some background on this is that the film's star, Edward Norton, is also writing it and was given a great deal of creative input into the project. I had the pleasure of seeing Norton and Tyler at last year's San Diego Comic Con and thought he spoke very enthusiastically about what his screenplay to the Hulk would bring to the table. He spoke with such passion and knowledge about the characters and the story that it immediately made me confident that we weren't about to see another Catwoman or Daredevil.
In the end Marvel had other ideas. Finke is now reporting that the issues have been settled but "what people will see is Marvel's cut of the movie. ....not the Edward Norton cut by any means."
Personally, I get why Marvel's new film division is nervous. Although I enjoyed Ang Lee's stab at the superhero many other filmgoers didn't.
There is enough animosity about comic to film adaptions already and the last thing the trend needs is another stinker. If all Hulk does is smash and all the heart is left out of the project my prediction is that the film will open as big as the Hulk himself and then quickly fade away.
OracleChele
Posted to on 17 April 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: Hulk
Nikki Finke does, once in a while, get a good scoop through email from various assistants around town, but she also gets a lot of things wrong and she has a very apparent bias against any and all management. It's not insider information, its gossip. She is no more privy to the discussions between Norton and Marvel than me, nor does she have a copy of Norton's contract with Marvel (in nearly every case, the studio gets final cut of the film and the filmmaker is obliged to bring the film in for a pre-determined rating and running time). Norton knows this as well as any other above the line participant in town.
So, if the contract called for PG or PG-13 with a running time between 90-116 minutes and that's not what gets delivered (because that's what's been pre-sold to exhibitors a year ago...) then Marvel brings somebody in to make it so. There's no animosity, it just is what it is.
Nikke Finke is just catering to the lowest common denominator and trying to make another producer look like an ogre is she says, implies, or infers anything more.