Getting upset about how much a trailer does or doesn’t show seems kind of like an obscure thing. That is, unless you hang out on the internet – where this kind of vitrol is commonplace.
With much fanfare, the teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk premiered on all Viacom-owned cable networks on Wednesday – MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, the works. Anticipation for this thing was so huge, they were running commercials for the teaser. “Be sure you don’t miss the teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk!”
Marketing has gotten so meta, it won’t be long until they start running commercials for the idea to film a movie. “Stephen Spielberg was thinking about a sequel to E.T. while eating a cantaloupe this morning! Stay tuned for the next two years to see if he decides to make it!”
All I know is that the people who are buying tickets for Doomsday to see this trailer are going to feel like chumps.
Personally, I wasn’t offended by how much the trailer showed. The lead-up to the big fight between the Hulk and the Abomination looks bad-ass. But I run in circles where people thought they showed too much. Maybe it would have been nice to have been teased a little bit with how this version of the Hulk was going to look. But you know what? Hardly anything is a secret anymore, so why not come out of the gate swinging? Literally!
Actually, from what I’ve heard, the fight sequence is supposed to be almost a half hour long. Two giant monsters beating the crap out of each other in and around New York City? They haven’t even shown us the tip of the iceberg yet.
That said, this trailer didn’t get me as pumped as I was when I saw the first Iron Man teaser. Now, admittedly, I’m a huge Iron Man fan, so I was going to be pumped regardless. But at the same time, it was affirming to see the Iron Man team wasn’t screwing things up. As for The Incredible Hulk? The jury is still out.
Reportedly, star Ed Norton Jr. is fighting with the producers about how the film should end. Norton wants it to be darker. Marvel wants it to be family fare. This is par for the course when working with Norton. Reportedly, he’s been like this ever since American History X. That’s a good and a bad thing. He’s invested in the character – even wrote a draft of the screenplay. No doubt he’ll bring something great to his performance. But sometimes you gotta know when to step out of the way.
Personally, I’m probably just as interested in the performances between Norton and Tim Roth as the villain as I am about the CG smack down. But it’s sort of bittersweet because these two have to be swept off the stage at some point to let their CG counterparts take over.
Back to the trailer, I’m actually kind of surprised that they’re releasing it just a few months before Iron Man hits theaters. You’d think Marvel would want to keep our attention on that since the character is less well known than the Hulk and this is his first big screen outing.
Maybe this trailer is just to whet the pallet until after Iron Man comes out, then will get hit with the full-fledged assault. We’ll see.
Sorry for the delay posting today’s comic, but I have a good reason. I went to see Henry Rollins do a spoken word show last night. He was on stage for three hours and then I hung around afterwords to see if I could meet him. If you want more details (including photos), you can read the rest of the story over at my LiveJournal page.
Until then, take it easy and have a great weekend!
