In the series of concept art they revealed throughout Comic Con, Marvel saved the most complicated Avenger for last. It took them until Sunday to give us a look at the concept art for The Hulk, the only major member of The Avengers cast to have been played by two other actors this decade, and the only one who will rely heavily on CGI to exist. There's a reason it took them forever to officially announce Mark Ruffalo had been cast-- this is not an easy character to bring to life. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige admitted that much and more in a quick interview with The LA Times, explaining what we're looking at in the Hulk concept art you see above, and why this version of the big green guy is going to feel more human than all the others.
"We did a few designs that put Ruffalo into it, and we immediately saw how much more you feel for the creature," Feige said of the process for building this incarnation of The Hulk. "When you keep that connection going between Banner and the Hulk and you have characters around him trying to reach Banner inside — “Bruce, calm down,” and all of that classic Hulk stuff — it means more if you see the same actor throughout." As Feige explained it, the previous two go-rounds with the character, as seen in Ang Lee's Hulk and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk, had been efforts to keep the character consistent regardless of which actor was playing him:
It was something we actively avoided before. Hulk was Hulk, he’s not any one actor and Hulk should look like Hulk. It was like Iron Man’s armor, in a way, it wouldn’t change depending on the actor wearing it. But we’ve taken a different approach because Hulk is Banner and, frankly, we came to question our approach. Why are we not doing it this way?
As for other differences in the character this time around, it sounds like the presence of Ruffalo will be the major factor; everything else is pretty much staying the same:
He’ll be about the same size he was in “The Incredible Hulk” [which was about 9 feet tall] or maybe a little bit smaller. His muscles won’t be quite as cut. We figure he’s been the Hulk now for a few years and [his physique is changing]. He’s not as cut or as ripped as he was in “The Incredible Hulk.” The most important thing is that face.
Honestly, when I first looked at that concept art on Sunday, I didn't see Ruffalo in there at all, and gave them the benefit of the doubt given that it's concept art and not an actual photo. But the presence of the actor is something you feel more when the character is in motion anyway, so I'm not going to totally discount Feige's statements about the Hulk feeling more "human" as general PR nonsense. Of course, it would help if any real version of that post-Captain America Avengers teaser were actually online. I still haven't seen it since they snipped it off the end of all Cap press screenings, and it's frustrating to write about this new Hulk knowing there's more information out there that was deliberately withheld from press. Would any of you guys who have actually seen the teaser like to chime in on this new Hulk and his supposed humanity?
