The Hulk panel
by JoBlo

Who was there?
Director Ang Lee
Producer Gale Anne Hurd
Producer Larry J. Franco
Producer Avi Arad

THE HULK panel was one of the sessions that I was most looking forward to on this day, since the big green monster had always been one of my favorite Marvel comics, and with the surprising choice of Ang Lee at the helm, I was ready to see what kind of footage was going to be shown to us. Were we finally gonna get our first look at the CGI hulkster? You bet your ass that I thought we would (in fact, pretty much everyone in the audience was expecting it as well), but unfortunately, the panel was one of the more "serious" ones at the con, with very little actual behind-the-scenes stuff shown to us. Sure, Mr. Lee and the producers were nice enough to come all the way down to San Diego from the shoot in order to give us the skinny on the proceedings and run through a picture slide show for us...but in the end, we all wanted to see THE HULK, dammit...and it t'was not to be (click here if you want to see all of the actual pictures from the slide show though).

So right off the top, we get into a Q&A and Lee says something about how making THE HULK "feels like an independent movie, but the biggest one around." He also says that all of the cards seem to be in place for success and humbly admits that "if it doesn't work, it's my fault." For anyone who doesn't know about Mr. Lee yet, he is a very soft-spoken gentleman with a tendency to over-dramatize and get somewhat "artsy-farsty" when speaking about his films (some of which include THE ICE STORM, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON). In fact, for a movie and comic as "grrrrrrrrrrrr" as THE HULK, the panel almost managed to make the whole thing sound boring and for the more "intellectual" types. Hey man...it's a fuckin' green monster who smashes shit up....drop the intellectual over-analysis (words like "organic" and "psychological regression" popped up here and there) and give us the goods! (I'm exaggerating for effect, of course...but it was a little frustrating at times). Anyway, here's some stuff that I learned about THE HULK:

• They've already been working on the movie for about a year now, with about a year to go (tentative release date: June 2003)

• The film stars Eric Bana as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Jennifer Connelly as Betsy Ross (his babe), Sam Shepard as Connelly's dad and Nick Nolte as Bana's dad. Josh Lucas also shows up as Major Glenn Talbot.

• The film's climactic scene takes place in San Francisco.

• She-Hulk does not make an appearance in this movie, according to Avi Arad.

• Absorbing Man is not in this movie, according to Ang Lee.

• Someone asked Ang Lee if actor Tobey Maguire (who has starred in two of Lee's previous flicks) will make an appearance in the movie (Maguire is now best known as the titular character from SPIDER-MAN). "No, not this one", joked Lee.

• When asked whether he would ever do a comedy, Lee said that he would do "whatever his heart told him" and that he considered that he had already done 4 comedies already, but that he was in a different "mode" now, developing into different genres.

• When asked whether or not THE HULK was ever nude in this movie, Lee said that it was slated to be a "PG-13" film and that "no", he was definitely not nude in it.

• They did confirm that actor/body-builder Lou Ferrigno, the man who got green in the original TV series of THE HULK, would have a cameo appearance in the movie though.

• When yet another fan from the audience re-iterated our desire to see the HULK, Lee apologized and sincerely said that it was "actually still months away" and that showing anything today, wouldn't really be the final product anyway, so they just couldn't. The dude seemed really nice and humble, to be honest with you. Too bad he couldn't show us a clip of the big green monster. And I'm not talking about the stuff in my pants either... ;) Bad joke, I know.

• And last but certainly not least (most panels seem to finish with some gossip being tossed up for discussion), someone asked the panel to comment on the Internet rumors about the film going over-budget, fighting on the set, etc and so forth. This was kind of funny because Lee actually said, "I think going over budget is good news for audiences, no?", to which he received a hearty response. So yes, they are going over budget, but in a "good way". Hehehe.

• The producers, almost as if they sensed like they had come across as a little stuffy, confirmed that the film would be "loaded with action" and Arad even said that if you "thought the action was unique in CROUCHING TIGER, wait until you see this movie!". Gale Anne Hurd also re-iterated the "fun" aspect of the film and said that other than the budget going over, the set was one of the "closest" ones that she'd ever been on and that everyone was like family. She also said that the rumors about infighting were the most difficult ones to swallow, especially since everyone was so close in the production.

Oh well, once more I am left wondering what to expect exactly, but I have to admit that the fact that action was re-emphasized at the end, made me feel a little better in terms of the film's overall "popcorn" potential. Yes, I am sure that Mr. Lee will bring all of the characters to life, bring humanity to their roles, delve into the psychological ramifications of the hulk's transformation and so on and so forth...but dudes...don't forget that this is supposed to be a big-ass summer action extravaganza, and with a title like THE HULK, me no want to sit there and watch folks intellectualizing the inner-child of Bruce Banner for 120 minutes. HULK SMASH!!! HULK PUNCH!!! HULK KICK!!! 

Click here to check out the official THE HULK website

Check out the film's teaser trailer here
  

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 2002

The Arrow and I went down to San Diego for yet another awesome COMIC CONVENTION this year (check out our 2000 and 2001 reports respectively), and let me tell you...there was a lot of shit going on and lots of cool and surprising cameos. Starting Wednesday, each of the panel coverages will go up, so check out what's to come below. And yes, the always popular PHOTO GALLERY will be up on Friday.

The Hellboy panel:
Writer/director Guillermo Del Toro, actor Ron Perlman and writer/artist Mike Mignola discuss the upcoming comic-to-film project, as Del Toro sneaks a few dozen "fucks" in there before the panel's first 10 minutes is up.

The Bulletproof Monk panel:
Actor Seann William Scott and actress/babe Jamie King sit down and discuss their collaboration on the upcoming THE BULLETPROOF MONK, which also co-stars the very cool Chow Yun-Fat.

The House of the Dead panel:
Writers Mark. A. Altman and Dave Parker discuss the 2003 release of yet another video game making its way to the big screen: THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD. And what's this about a VAMPIRELLA movie? Stay tuned.

SONY/COLUMBIA

The XXX panel:
Actress/babe Asia Argento hops on stage and tells us a little something about herself and her upcoming movie with a certain Vin Diesel. Does Vin show up unexpectedly?? (only in my dreams... ;)

The Tooth Fairy panel:
Actress/babe Emma Caulfield discusses her upcoming foray into genre flicks with TOOTH FAIRY, and the Arrow takes a few moments to discuss the film with director Jonathan Liebesman. Tooth-pulling ensues.

NEW LINE

The LOTR: The Two Towers panel:
No footage was shown but we did get a couple of bits tossed our way, as well as some cameos by Frodo, Pippin and Merry themselves (aka Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan).

WARNER BROS

The Ecks vs Sever panel:
Actress/babe Lucy Lui sits next to actor/Darth Maul Ray Park and director Kaos (who explained the origins of his name) to discuss their collaboration with the man with the golden cock, Antonio Banderas, in a little something called BALLISTIC: ECKS VS SEVER (and yes, it's also based on a video game).

The Dreamcatcher panel:
Actor/all-around cool guy Jason Lee and actor Timothy Olyphant get on stage to field some questions about the film which they are presently shooting, based on a Stephen King novel, entitled DREAMCATCHER, but are instead pelted with questions about Kevin Smith movies and requests to repeat cool quotes from said flicks.

The Terminator 3 surprise:
Unbeknownst to most, director Jonathan Mostow was nice enough to drop by the Con, in order to show off a few minutes of the highly anticipated sequel to the sequel of THE TERMINATOR. Another "small" cameo dropped by to pay his props to the fanboys, a gentleman by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

UNIVERSAL

The Hulk panel:
Director Ang Lee and producers Gale Anne Hurd, Larry J. Franco and Avi Arad stop by to show us some stills of the 2003 release of THE HULK (that's right, no actual footage or pics of the green monster...darn!) and answer some questions.

FOX

The Solaris surprise:
Yet another big surprise came in writer/director/king of the world James Cameron showing up for a quick Q&A about the upcoming sci-fi flick SOLARIS (which he produced and Steven Soderbergh wrote and directed), as well as a 4-minute clip from the actual movie, starring George Clooney.

The X-Men 2 panel:
Director Bryan Singer was nice enough to leave his Vancouver set of X2 and come down to Diego for some questions from the audience and to show us the coolest 2-minute clip that I saw all weekend. Wow!! The man apparently has only been shooting from about 3-4 weeks, but from what we all saw of the clip...this movie looks like a fuckin' slam-dunk!

The Daredevil panel:
This was one of the biggest panels with writer/director Mark Steven Johnson leading the pack, alongside DAREDEVIL himself, Ben Affleck, as well as producer Avi Arad, Gary Foster and comic guru Joe Quesada. Yet another exclusive clip was shown from the movie, and it will also be discussed.

The official 2002 JoBlo.com Photo Gallery:
Pictures from our trip to California / Vegas for anyone who gives a shit. Here are the links to last year's photo gallery and the one from 2000.