Not much has changed since our last update a couple of hours ago. The final box office results are in line with what we expected. It was a soft start for ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ People still had the bad aftertaste from the first Hulk movie and the $150 million blockbuster didn’t manage to top $55 million. Now $54.5 million isn’t a bad start and it beats Marvel’s (low) expectations. But with a $100 million ‘Iron Man’ opening weekend last month, this number shouldn’t satisfy them. Especially since ‘Iron Man’ was cheaper and a lesser-known character. Marvel simply didn’t succeed in explaining why people should see the green faced Bruce Banner another time. Ang Lee’s ‘The Hulk’ grossed $62 million in its opening weekend.

Meanwhile, ‘The Happening’ gives a mixed picture. While some expected the thriller to end up in the low teens, $30.5 million is a decent number. Considering the $60 million budget, Fox might have wanted a little more. But they made a smart choice by releasing the B-movie worldwide from day one. Not including marketing and distribution, the $32 million overseas gross surprisingly makes M. Night Shyamalan’s work profitable from the first weekend. In this aspect, you could say Fox’ marketing for ‘The Happening’ was better than Universal’s for ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ While it still has to launch in about 25% of its markets, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ made just $31 million overseas.

Continue reading Final box office weekend estimates, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ tops with decent performance, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ second before ‘The Happening’

We know Marvel is trying all it can to disconnect ‘The Incredible Hulk’ from the Ang Lee’s movie in 2003 – or should I say flop? But not only the marketing department is busy with distinguishing the new movie from ‘The Hulk,’ the creators are also pressuring the fact their movie is a totally fresh and original experience. Latino Review caught up with the director and producers of the new movie.

Director Louis Leterrier said, “I respect Ang’s movie tremendously and I love Ang’s movie. I just didn’t want to do the same thing. […] we have to all try together to make people understand that this is really not the sequel to the first movie, but it’s not a reboot of the first movie where you do the same thing.”

Continue reading ‘The Incredible Hulk’ is not ‘The Hulk’