Ang Lee recalls making Hulk: “Superheroes were not a genre yet”

Before the dawn of all-encompassing mega-franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, superhero movies used to be a quite different; sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Remember Ang Lee’s cult movie Hulk starring Eric Bana, which released almost two decades ago? With some of the funkiest transitions ever and a crazy battle against mutant dogs, it’s hard to forget.

Speaking to DiscussingFilm about his one and only foray into the world of superheroes, director Ang Lee said that he likes to separate his work from the wider Marvel universe. At the time, superhero movies weren’t dominating the box office, nor were they required to set up future movies. They were simply a few hours of chaotic, comic book fun.

When Lee made Hulk, he had the creative freedom to create something wild. “Back then people indulged me to do whatever I wanted, so the support was great,” he said. There wasn’t a big studio demanding he follow the Marvel formula, which means it’d be harder to make this kind of movie today. “[B]ack then superhero movies were not a genre yet,” Lee said. “Six months before mine was coming out, there was [Sam Raimi’s] Spider-Man. You take the comic books, but you do whatever you want with them. It was not a genre.”

"[With] movies that had over $100 million budgets, nobody really knew how to control them. Without previews or anything, we just kept going, ‘Hopefully, this will work.’ So it was an indulgence, which I think is harder to happen now."

Ang Lee’s Hulk movie “confused the market”

When Hulk premiered, it was slammed by critics and casual viewers alike. It didn’t help that it released around the same time as Spider-Man and X-Men 2, which were both hugely successful pictures. I mean, Tobey Maguire returned as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is set to return in Deadpool 3. Hulk has been left behind.

So what went wrong with Hulk? According to Lee, his idea for the movie didn’t connect with viewers. “I wanted to do like a psychodrama, like a sci-fi/horror film was where my head was at,” he said. But ultimately, “It was confusing for the market. I wasn’t happy about that.”

Not every movie can be a winner. I don’t think I’ll be giving the movie a rewatch for its 20th anniversary. Well, I might watch Hulk fight those mutant dogs again.

VFX artists explain what went wrong with the special effects in Ant-Man 3

Meanwhile, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is starting to feel stretched thin. The most recent release, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is getting mixed reviews at best. It’s even getting dinged for some shoddy special effects work, usually something Marvel fans can expect will be excellent. Speaking to Vulture anonymously, some SFX techs explained what was happening.

“Wakanda Forever was definitely at the top of the list,” one VFX tech said. “It’s understandable given the context — with Chadwick and everything and how well the first film did. But it did diminish the ability to carry Ant-Man all the way through.”

The tech said that Marvel took “shortcuts” with Ant-Man 3 “ to cover up incomplete work.”

"If it comes down to them not being comfortable with their bank numbers and us working until burnout, we lose out every time. Honestly, I equate it to human greed […] Marvel is doubling down as much as possible on constricting quality. They’re squeezing blood out of stones. And we’re out of blood."

Another VFX artist expressed frustration at having to cover what he saw as the production’s mistakes:

"Maybe the director had an idea of what he wanted, but he wasn’t 100 percent clear. We had a rough environment that we were sticking a few main characters in. At that time, we weren’t told where the characters should be in that environment. We were just going with what felt right.Then there were times when we were creating an actor’s entire action: Ant-Man moving across something. And you just think, Why didn’t they film it the right way or how they wanted in the first place? Why are we having to redo and re-create? Why do we have to Frankenstein together an actor’s performance? A quick shot that maybe takes two seconds would have to be redone 20 times to get the look that they want. There was a lot of reworking, a lot of inefficiency. I ended up taking over and reworking a large portion of other artists’ work — which is not how things usually go when you are working for other studios."

Steven Yeun joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Thunderbolts

And yet, the MCU must continue. Recently, Deadline reported that actor Steven Yeun, as Oscar-nominated actor best known for his roles in The Walking Dead and Invincible, will star in Thunderbolts, an upcoming movie about a group of superheroes who are maybe less than spotlessly heroic.

At the moment, the cast includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a kind of shadow version of Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury; Wyatt Russell as John Walker from The Falcon And The Winter Soldier; Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova from Black Widow and Hawkeye; and others. It’s not known what role Yeun will play as of yet.

Thunderbolts comes out on July 26, 2024. And the machine grinds on.

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