Comics2Film sat down for an exclusive interview with 'Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier to talk about the daunting task of rebooting the film franchise for one of the most iconic comic book characters of all time.
We were able to spend more time than expected with the director and will present the interview in three parts. Part one begins below:
C2F: Congratulations on all the positive buzz for 'Incredible Hulk' this week.
Leterrier: Yeah, I'm actually on Rotten Tomatoes checking. It's like checking your stock.
C2F: What's it up to now?
Leterrier: It's at 71%. It's going up! It's going up!
C2F: it was a 60-something yesterday so that's good.
Leterrier: You cannot make everybody happy. I'll take it. When it was at 61% I was thrilled so if I get above 60% that'll be a victory. Victory!
C2F: Was it intimidating to do a reboot of a movie that wasn't well-received?
Leterrier: It was impossible for me. I told Marvel when they said, would you be interested in taking a crack at Hulk I said No because I thought I was unworthy. I thought I didn't know how to do it. I had just done these Eurotrash action movies and you're offering me...at first I thought they wanted me to do the sequel to Ang's movie. So I was "Whoa...me? To do a sequel to Ang's movie? It's kind of strange"
But they said, "No, no no. We want to restart the franchise and have a very personal take on it and we think you're the right guy."
Hulk is a legend, you know?
People will watch Spider-Man, Hulk, Superman, twenty – thirty years from now. Superman, people are still watching it. These other movies that have an audience, with six and seven year olds watching and it has a tremendous impact on their lives
I was like "No, no, no. I don't think I can. Please, no."
But they held me by my T-Shirt and said, "Think about it. Go back home. Talk to friends. Digest it and see what you can come back with to keep you interested and come back to us with your take and we'll tell you if its the right one."
That's what I did, but yeah I was tremendously intimidated.
C2F: What turned the corner and made you realize you could do a Hulk movie?
Leterrier: The visual effects and technical aspects of it were very daunting but, what turned the corner for me was when I realized that you could tell a Hulk story without Transformers like visual effects, without making it like a visual effects extravaganza without a real story.
Coming back home on the flight back I was thinking, thinking, thinking about Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk and then I said "Boom...TV show."
Because in France where I grew up the Hulk comic books and Marvel comic books weren't as widely distributed as they were here.
What was hugely popular was the TV show, and my wife, on the way back, said, "Remember how much we loved the Hulk TV show."
That's what clicked. They had no money to do it. What was great is that they had tremendous actors giving you the pathos of what it felt to be this guy, the smartest man alive and has to take crappy jobs because he has that dark secret within him and needs to stay away from people because he has this temper that turns him into the green monster.
I loved that so I came back to Marvel with and said, "I want to tell a human story. I want to tell a story of a guy that's hiding, a fugitive. I loved all these movies, Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive", "Cast Away", the "Bond" series, all these movies that have the guy who's smart, who's a fish out of the water that's trying to get his life back together or trying to hide away.
I want to do that story and on top of that, with CGI technology helping, we could add multiple cherries on top of the cake with great Hulk action and great-looking monsters fighting in fun locations.
C2F: The that's something the TV series did great and the last movie did not do well, was making Banner a compelling character apart from the Hulk.
Leterrier: That was the main thing in the TV show.
And you're right, that was the downfall of Ang Lee's movie was that you were waiting...you didn't really care about Banner. "You're kind of boring. I want to see the...OK, yes you have problems. Yes you have problems with your father who was kind of nutty..."
Although it was interesting as a drama piece, when you injected the Hulk action it became kind of goofy in a way.
I'm saying this with tremendous love and admiration for Ang's movie. I think it's a great movie but it's a movie that ...it's looking for an identity. It's like you feel the director too much.
That's what I tried not to do on my Hulk, to give my vision of Hulk but more using the forty years of Hulk history and putting that, whether its the TV show or most importantly the comic books on screen.
It was more like Ang Lee's version of "a Hulk".
The characters in the TV show, both Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, both of them were so important.
C2F: And how important was it to cast Edward Norton to fulfill that role of Banner?
Leterrier: Tremendously important!
It's funny. You're casting your movie and looking for your ideal Bruce Banner and you always have your ideal actor. Your casting director is always going to ask you, "ideally, who would be your guy?"
In France, you always say, "I'm looking for Will Smith," but you cannot get that.
Same thing here. When I asked I would say, "Well, I'm looking for a scrawny, intellectual with demons inside ravaging him...like Edward Norton."
And she was the casting director that had done 'Fight Club' so she said, "Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Edward will never want to do that, so forget about that. Let's move on."
So we looked at people and then one day...what's great about America is you can pretty much meet everybody. No one has an ego too big that they wouldn't want to meet you. Everybody wants to meet you and hear what you have to say.
So I got to meet Edward and then the rest is history.
Some actors, they give you the very polite "Oh yeah, that sounds very interesting. Oh yeah, I'd be honored to work in your movie," and everything.
I had dinner with Edward and I couldn't read the guy. He was just looking so deep into my eyes and I was shying away from him. For two hours of me pitching like a madman this movie, and showing him these pictures...and being the worst I've ever been because I was not getting any reaction.
I was saying, "Ed! Ed, we can do this and put this..." and he was not reacting, "Or we could do something else, you know!"
It was the worst director pitch and I thought I didn't get him. And then on my flight back to L.A. from New York, where I met him, he had called Marvel and said he loved our meeting and would love to do Hulk.
I felt tremendously lucky to have him. Like Bixby he's the perfect incarnation of Bruce Banner.
Tune in for part 2 of our interview with Louis Leterrier tomorrow!
'The Incredible Hulk' opens for early screenings tonight, and nationwide tomorrow.
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