The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a massive franchise with millions of fans, but let's face it, you frequently forget The Incredible Hulk is even part of the same movie series. On the eve of Avengers: Infinity War, the team at Honest Trailers takes aim at the lost and unloved member of the MCU, Edward Norton's The Incredible Hulk. Check it out.
There are a lot of reasons why The Incredible Hulk tends to be forgotten. The biggest is that, for the most part, Marvel has simply chosen to mostly ignore the movie. After the decision was made to recast the role of Bruce Banner when Mark Ruffalo was brought in for The Avengers, not much else from the original movie was ever referenced. It wasn't until William Hurt showed up as Thunderbolt Ross in Captain America: Civil War that we had any indication that even Marvel remembered that movie happened.
As the Honest Trailer points out, the movie also wasn't a box office smash (Hulk jokes). While it was only the second movie in the MCU, it came in significantly under what Iron Man was able to do at the box office. It's still the lowest grossing MCU movie ever produced. At the end of the day, box office results make a lot of decisions and it was clear that audiences weren't in love with this movie.
To be fair, the Hulk has always been a tough character to figure out. People want to see the big green guy smash the heck out of things, but you need a lot more than that to make a good movie, which means you need to spend a lot of time with Hulk's human side in order to make the character relatable and sympathetic. You also need a strong villain to oppose the Hulk, and while Tim Roth is a great actor, his character has little motivation, beyond wanting to be a big strong guy, which makes him pretty forgettable.
In the end, as the trailer points out, everything worked out for the best. Marvel fans got Mark Ruffalo, who has been widely embraced as the new Hulk, and Edward Norton has gone on to make several other films showing off that he is a truly great actor. You can see Mark Ruffalo as the new Hulk in Avengers: Infinity War this weekend.
