The Incredible Hulk: Going Green with Zak Penn

Ask Ang Lee or anyone else who has taken a stab at adapting The Incredible Hulk for film, TV or comics and they'll probably say it isn't easy going green. After Ang Lee's 2003 big screen version of the Hulk, Universal took some time to figure out how to breathe new life into the popular comic book hero and finally enlisted X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand scribe Zak Penn to write the script for the upcoming The Incredible Hulk, starring Ed Norton as Bruce Banner.

In an age where comic book properties are finally having their day in the sun after so many years of unrealized potential (mainly due the previous confines of technology), actual comic book fans have become writers in Hollywood and know instinctively what fans expect from their favorite heroes on the big screen. Such was the case for Zak Penn (also attached to The Avengers project) who wrote an unproduced draft of the Hulk back in 1996 but failed to capture the attention of execs in order to get his version to the big screen. Flash forward 12 years and now Zak Penn's Hulk story landed him the writing gig on the latest project. With The Incredible Hulk set for release this coming June, The Deadbolt listened to Penn as he broke down how he landed the writing gig on the latest Hulk, his own version, and how it will be different than Ang Lee's 2003 film.

Zak Penn and his history with the Hulk:

"What’s weird about The Hulk is I wrote a draft of the first movie in 1996. I was the second writer on the project. My take on it was that despite loving - and you guys probably accept that I’m a comic book fan at this point - despite loving the original comic books, I also thought the TV series did an incredible job - no pun intended - of adapting that material. And my script, while being true to the mythology of the comic, followed the tone of the TV show. I said, ‘This is The Fugitive, but if the fugitive was Dr. Jekyll.’ Nobody disagreed, but nobody agreed and my script was tossed in the heap with everyone else’s. I mean, there were ten writers on it."

"After the movie came out and Marvel started its own studio, they called me and said, ‘We read your draft again, that’s the movie we want to make.’ So - one, I’m a sucker for flattery and I’ll see another Hulk movie. I mean, why not, you know? In fact, it’s almost weird to me. I understand people who are hardcore fans that kind of get wrapped up in this stuff and I think the internet almost makes it worse, because they all talk to each other and they work themselves into a frenzy. But, fundamentally, I want to see any good movie. When Gus Van Sant did Psycho and everybody kind of went crazy about it, I’m curious. Look, I haven’t heard good things about the movie but it was good, who cares where it comes from. It’s hard to make a good movie. It’s really hard. If you can find a way to do it, god bless."

Penn on the 2003 version of Hulk:

"I think Ang Lee’s version of it was pretty dark, actually. It’s weird because it’s dark in its overtones, but it’s actually very light in the way - I mean one of the issues is that it was shot outside in bright sunlight with the Hulk. That’s a bit of a fanboy or effects-guy argument. But I think Ang Lee is one of the best filmmakers in the world. I don’t think that the Hulk, the first movie - I didn’t love the additions they made to the mythology. To me there’s such a fundamental and primal issue, the idea of being a guy who can not experience tension or anxiety in a world like our modern world, which is filled with tension and anxiety. That, to me, is all the idea you need. Adding the wild edit pole stuff with his dad and all that other stuff, that was tough for me."