Marvel Studios teamed up with several partners for their Hulk advertising push this summer. Expect to see the Hulk at least as much as the Simpsons last year, because ‘The Incredible Hulk’ will be showing up at “Burger King, 7-Eleven, Kmart, mall retailers, grocery store brands Pringles and Sargento, Airheads candy and Hasbro toys.“

To distinguish itself from the flopped Ang Lee Hulk in 2003, the studio said to have changed several key elements. The Hulk is now portrayed as a real hero, he falls in love and he has a high profile nemesis The Abomination. This is not only to please the audience, but also to convince the advertisers of the Hulk again.

I’m starting to see why Edward Norton got into that feud with Marvel.

With the summer around the corner, everybody is betting one the new ‘Indiana Jones’ to take the top spot. People in other countries may go out swimming or sunbathing, but the US has its bussiest season during those days, with 40% of the tickets sold between May and August.

Last year a whopping $9.62 billion was made, with summer blockbusters like ‘Spider-man 3,’ ‘Shrek the Third’ and ‘Transformers.’ But this summer isn’t short on potential box office wonders either. Here are the candidates with their budgets as found on the speculative internet.

• ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ ($100 million)
• ‘Speed Racer’ ($100 million)
• ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ ($125 million)
• ‘The Dark Knight’ ($150 million)
• ‘The Incredible Hulk’ ($125 million)
• ‘Iron Man’ ($186 million)
• ‘The Happening’ ($57 million)
• ‘Wall-e’ ($120 million)
• ‘Tropic Thunder’ ($150 million)
• ‘Meet Dave’ ($100 million)
• ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’ ($75 million)
• ‘Sex and the City: The Movie’ ($65 million)
• ‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe’ ($35 million)
• ‘Get Smart’ (”biggest Peter Segal budget,” $100 million maybe?)
• ‘Hancock’ (??)
• ‘The Love Guru’ (??)

You don’t have to add up all these budgets to know it will be a good summer for Hollywood.

Sure to be used again in the future, Empire’s new magazine is the first to have a real 3-D cover. With ‘The Incredible Hulk’ coming out of the cover, it is one step further than the holographic covers we saw for years.

Is this the last breath of the print media to get some attention, or will we see a whole bunch of new marketing tricks like these?

Most of the readers on their forum aren’t yet convinced either way. They say it makes the magazine hard to read, the cover is ripping or it came in the mail already damaged. It must have made the guys at Empire extra sad when someone even described it as ‘cheap and tacky.’

Well, at least about every movie blog was writing about the new Empire issue, so in that respect I think it worked out quite well for them.