This year marks the 20th anniversary of Ang Lee’s Hulk, and it would be fair to say that the blockbuster Marvel Comics adaptation remains just as capable of splitting opinion straight down the middle today as it did two decades ago.
For all of its flaws, the ambition and technical mastery on display can’t be faulted, with the acclaimed filmmaker pulling out countless visual tricks to make you feel as though you’re genuinely witnessing a comic book splash panel come to life, even if the majority of the CGI that was deemed groundbreaking at the time doesn’t quite hold up through a modern lens.
Star Josh Lucas recently stated his belief that the underwhelming reception afforded to Hulk was partly due to the film being ahead of its time, but in an interview with Discussing Film, director Lee admitted that his approach to the source material was indulgent on his part, leading to widespread confusion over how to market and sell an action-packed superhero spectacular that was actually a family drama in disguise.
“I think it would be harder now because back then superhero movies were not a genre yet. 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. I decided that I wanted to do like a psychodrama, like a sci-fi/horror film was where my head was at. It was really adventurous. At the time, 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.
So [Hulk] is like Crouching Tiger, I did it once and that was that. I’m glad I did those things, but I was not comfortable when the movie came out and got this mixed reaction. It was confusing for the market. I wasn’t happy about that. But I worked certainly very hard. I was very proud of the filmmakers who made the movie with me. And then only years later, I didn’t know there was kind of a subculture. It was like a cult movie, but it wasn’t meant to be that way. It was a big, expensive studio movie. But I’m happy some people like you really like it. I’m happy about that, something very cool about it.”
Hulk may have simply been the wrong movie at the wrong time; X-Men and Spider-Man showed audiences were receptive to big budget spandex-clad epics, but Lee’s more cerebral and thought-provoking spin on the giant green rage monster didn’t catch on with crowds back in 2003, but it may have fared better today when people are more open to the genre taking bigger swings than ever before.