Concept artist Benton Jew has worked on a wide variety of films, and actually started work at George Lucas‘ Industrial Light & Magic. Since he had done work on every HULK film except for THE AVENGERS, Jew decided to share some old concept art as well as an interesting look at Billy Crudup as Bruce Banner/Hulk. Yes, this almost happened. At one time, Crudup was attached to play the green machine in Ang Lee‘s vision then dropped out because according to Jew he had reservations about “become a star.” This was when Crudup was known for his indie roles.
Before Crudup and Ang Lee, there was Jonathan Hensleigh‘s never made version that was supposed to come out in 1997. Intially, producers Avi Arad and Gale Anne Hurd worked on creating a Hulk for the big screen back in the 90s. First Hulk was fighting terrorists and convicts injected with gamma-irradiated insect DNA turning them into “insect men.” THE F*CK?! Anyway, tons of people toyed with it and at one point Joe Johnston signs on to direct then leaves immediately. Hurd’s husband Hensleigh was the one who wrote the treatment with the insect men, and it just never happened. The concept art that Jew did for this abomination (no pun intended) is below.
Now on to the Billy Crudup Ang Lee HULK. May I say in the nicest way possible that Crudup makes for one ugly Hulk. Not that we were meant to find him attractive, but that face. I think that Crudup would have made an okay Hulk, but is a better Dr. Manhattan. Eventually the role went to Eric Bana and the rest is history.
Lastly, I present to you a storyboard from Louis Leterrier‘s version. Jew notes that he did not work on the design Hulk on that one, only the storyboard. The ones he worked on had to do more with Banner than Hulk.
To check out the rest on Jew’s blog, head here.
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