Trivia / The Incredible Hulk (2008)

• Actor-Inspired Element: It was Tim Roth who suggested Blonsky be a soldier, whereas in the comics he was a KGB agent.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Liv Tyler accepted her role without reading the script.
• Box Office Bomb: Production costs: $150 million (not counting marketing). Worldwide gross: $263 million. This movie bears the distinction as being the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first flop, and even still, the film managed to break even with post-theatrical revenues since it came out right before advertising budgets on movies of this kind exploded. Even still, an underwhelming box office total likely contributed (along with the distribution rights issue with Universal) to the decision to not make another Hulk movie, even after the Marvel Cinematic Universe really took off with The Avengers (2012).
• California Doubling: Although the final scenes are set in Manhattan (Harlem to be exact), they were shot in Toronto, with the initial showdown between the Hulk and the Abomination being filmed on Yonge Street. Several Toronto icons are visible, most notably the "spinning disc" sign for Sam the Record Man, and the marquee of the Zanzibar Tavern.
• Cast the Expert: The master that teaches Bruce meditation techniques (and presumably some of the moves he uses on the thugs from the factory) is played by Rickson Gracie, a legendary Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner who also became a Yoga adept under pioneer Orlando Cani. Amusingly, he is credited instead as an instructor of Aikido, a martial art Gracie doesn't practice and which has somewhat of a backlash against in the BJJ community.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Bruce Banner was dubbed by Hiro Mizushima, whom tokusatsu fans would know him as Soji Tendou.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Robert Downey Jr. made a cameo as a favor to Marvel Studios, which he acknowledged as a smart move on Marvel's part, because when he was promoting his film he would also have to mention their other production.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Edward Norton had this to say about the film:
  I did a big action movie called The Incredible Hulk. You know what went wrong? It needed a better script... I thought maybe we should try to make one Marvel movie that was at least as good as the worst Chris Nolan movie, but what the hell was I thinking?!
  • Kevin Feige did not particularly enjoy working with Norton on this film, as he didn't like Norton's behavior behind the scenes. This led to Norton becoming one of the very few Persona Non Grata actors within the MCU.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Louis Leterrier cast William Hurt because "Ross is more physical, more explosive in this movie, and no actor goes from zero to 100 as well as William."
• Dawson Casting: General Ross asks Emil Blonsky's age. Ross guesses the age of 45. Blonsky states he is 39. Tim Roth was actually 46 at the time of the movie's release. Justified, as Blonsky is supposed to look older than he is due to the excessive (even for a member of special forces) wear and tear he has put his body through.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Directed by Cast Member: In addition to doing rewrites, Edward Norton actually directed himself in some of his own scenes too, such as the campus scenes, to save time when the director was busy working with 2nd-unit.
• Executive Meddling: Originally, Marvel Studios wanted Mark Ruffalo to play Bruce Banner in this movie, but Universal had Edward Norton on contract for a handful of movies, and decided to have him play the lead in this one. Marvel ultimately parted ways with him come The Avengers and cast the actor that they wanted from the start.
• Fake Nationality: The cast used a few non-Brazilian actors to play Brazilian characters (the factory owner and the leader of the bully trio). Their attempts to speak Portuguese sound ridiculous to real Brazilians.
• Fake Russian: Emil Blonsky, who’s stated to be Russian, is played by English actor Tim Roth.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: The sounds in the factory where Banner cuts himself are the same as the ones in the Carbonite chamber in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Inspiration for the Work: Louis Leterrier's primary inspiration was Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Hulk Gray (a retelling of the character's first appearance). He replicated every comic book panel that he pinned-up during pre-production, from the many comics he browsed, in the final film.
• Missing Trailer Scene: A scene where a despairing Bruce Banner arrives at the Arctic to commit suicide was featured in the trailer, but was deemed too depressing for an opening and too sensitive for young viewers and was removed from the film. It was later included in the deleted scenes on home media and officially canonized in The Avengers.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Mark Ruffalo replaced Edward Norton in The Avengers. Norton replaced Eric Bana. Making The Stinger for Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age of Ultron the second most times they kept the same actor after Bill Bixby.
  • Liv Tyler replaced Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross.
  • Sam Elliott wanted to reprise his role as General Ross, but it was taken by William Hurt.
• The Pete Best: Bruce ended up being Other Darrin-ed in The Avengers, which became massively popular while this film became relatively obscure (by Marvel standards, that is). As such, many fans are only familiar with Mark Ruffalo's version of the character and are unaware that Edward Norton was the first actor to portray Banner in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Promoted Fanboy: Edward Norton and William Hurt are big fans of the Hulk, while Tim Roth was a fan of the tv series.
• Role Reprise:
  • While Lou Ferrigno, the actor that played the Hulk on television, doesn't do the motion-capture for the character in this movie, he does lend his voice to the character.
  • The same happens in the Japanese dub, as Kenji Nomura reprised his role as Hulk from the dub of The Incredible Hulk (1996).
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The Hulk has the dubious distinction of being the one hero with his own solo movie that was introduced in Phase One... and not given a sequel in Phase Two and Three. All subsequent appearances of the Hulk or Bruce Banner have been full appearances in the first four Avengers movies and Thor: Ragnarok, as well as on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and cameos in Iron Man 3, Captain America: Civil War, Captain Marvel (2019) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Part of the reason for this is that Universal still had the distribution rights to the character's solo films until June 2023, when it expired and resulted in the film becoming available on Disney+, so Disney/Marvel Studios could only put him into the Avengers movies.
• So My Kids Can Watch:
  • Tim Roth accepted his role because his sons are comic-book superhero fans.
  • William Hurt and his son are big fans of the Hulk.
• Star-Derailing Role: While a moderate success, it was also the last starring role for Edward Norton in a big production (with the exception of his passion project Motherless Brooklyn, which flopped). He seems comfortable with ensemble and villainous roles.
• Uncredited Role: Robert Downey Jr. is uncredited for his cameo as Tony Stark in the final scene.
• Wag the Director: Edward Norton rewrote the script himself to bring the film closer in line to the comics. In certain posters, he was credited under the pseudonym of 'Edward Harrison'. Norton's writing credit was later denied by the WGA, and Zak Penn is the only writer credited.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mark Ruffalo was the first choice for the part of Bruce Banner before Edward Norton was cast. Ruffalo would eventually go on to replace Norton as the titular character in future Marvel Cinematic Universe installments.
    • David Duchovny, Dominic Purcell and Liev Schreiber were considered for the part of Bruce Banner as well before the casting of Norton. Purcell had previously portrayed Dracula in Blade: Trinity, while Schreiber would later go on to play Victor Creed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Wilson Fisk in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
  • Ray Stevenson was approached for the role of Emil Blonsky before the casting of Tim Roth. Stevenson would eventually go on to portray Volstagg in Thor.
  • Michael K. Williams' cameo as a Harlem bystander was originally going to be much longer. He would have pleaded with the Hulk and Abomination to stop their fighting, only to change his mind and basically tell the Hulk.
    Bystander: You know what, never mind, waste this bitch.
  • Before the attempt to incorporate the Oscorp Tower in The Avengers, which would've made Andrew Garfield's incarnation of Spider-Man part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Louis Leterrier originally intended to have Tobey Maguire have a cameo as Peter Parker in this movie. Funnily enough, he said in the same interview that "Years from now you'll see Peter Parker meeting Bruce Banner".
  • An alternate opening of the film had Bruce Banner running around in the Arctic, preparing to commit suicide before Hulking Out as a self-defense mechanism. This scene featured a brief glimpse at Captain America's frozen body. Supposedly, Captain America was originally intended to debut properly in The Stinger for the film. Despite the scene being cut, Bruce in The Avengers alludes to this suicide attempt when the Avengers are arguing with each other, implying the scene is still canon in some way.
  • Rick Jones was present in early drafts of the film, but ended up being removed once Norton rewrote the script.
  • An earlier draft for the film, which would've been a sequel to Hulk, would've made the Abomination a Composite Character with Glenn Talbot. Glenn Talbot would ultimately appear in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
  • Samuel Sterns had a little accident where his head was seen to start slightly growing in size before the scene cut. This was, evidently a set up for him to eventually debut as "The Leader" (Sterns' supervillain alter ego in the comic), with Tim Blake Nelson set to reprise his role as Sterns in two future movies. It seemingly was completely forgotten, with only a tie-in comic addressing his fate...until it was confirmed in 2022 that Nelson would reappear as The Leader after all, albeit in the fourth Captain America movie.
  • Edward Norton's original vision for the film and its proposed sequel was Darker and Edgier, with Norton explicitly likening it to Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. Marvel initially agreed to his pitch idea, but ultimately went back on it in favor of a more standard action movie.
  • At some point, the Abomination was planned to be disposed of by getting locked in a steel vault that would've been dropped into the ocean, but still leaving the door open for the character's return. This is never depicted on-screen, with Blonsky's fate being left ambiguous for the most part (with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. implying that he was cryogenically frozen in Alaska at one point), until the character was revealed to be held in a maximum security prison in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
  • Louis Leterrier had plans for a sequel that would have had multiple Red Hulks as well as an appearance from the Gray Hulk, but they ultimately fell through.
• Word of God:
  • According to Louis Leterrier, the final scene (Banner grins as his eyes turn green) was a deliberately ambiguous shot: it was meant to show that Bruce finally learns to controls Hulk (for a sequel) or will become a menace (as the villain for The Avengers (2012)). Neither of which has happened, but Hulk did attack the Helicarrier in The Avengers.
  • Martin Starr briefly appears as a computer geek that Banner bribes with some pizza. He would later play a teacher nearly a decade later in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Kevin Feige would eventually confirm that both of Starr's roles are the same character, retconning the novel saying that the geek was Amadeus Cho.

---