Gale Anne Hurd goes Green with The Hulk pt. 1

Crave Online: Did you have a sense of Déjà vu setting up a new Hulk movie so soon after the last?

Gale Anne Hurd: You know, I have to say, five years actually seems like a very long time to me. My daughter was 11 when the movie came out. Now she's 16, but yes. It was great to actually get back into the world of Hulk but this time to be able to incorporate elements from the TV series as well as the comic book.

Crave Online: Were you surprised by the vitriol towards the first movie?

Gale Anne Hurd: Yes, in a word, because the movie actually performed fairly well. It was profitable. The funny thing though is you'd find people who believe that the first film was the best comic book film ever made. They're certainly not the majority, but there are people who really liked Ang's take. I think the general audience, that was probably not the version that they were expecting to see in theaters.

Crave Online: Even within Marvel, Kevin Feige told us last year that the difference between this Hulk and the last will be that this one is good. Now, he's obviously riling up the fans, but that's a bold statement from within the company.

Gale Anne Hurd: [LAUGHTER] Well, obviously this time Marvel Studios being the financing entity and the entity controlling not only the comic book but the rights to the character now for the theatrical version, really felt that the character's back in their universe. I think that this time, the Marvel perspective was very much at the forefront.

Crave Online: Were you able to reuse or build off any CG work from the last movie?

Gale Anne Hurd: No. We started over from scratch with a completely new vendor this time, Rhythm and Hues as opposed to ILM. And a completely different look to the Hulk. He also stays the same size throughout.

Crave Online: Is he bigger than in the last one?

Gale Anne Hurd: No, he's actually nine feet and in the first film he started at nine feet and grew from there.

Crave Online: When did the Days without Incident counter come in?

Gale Anne Hurd: It was post production. It wasn't in the screenplay when we started shooting. It was actually a discussion in the editing room. We were saying, "Okay, how long has it been since he Hulked out?" And Louis said, "You know what would be great is if we actually put that on screen. Maybe it's something that the fans and the audiences watching the movie will enjoy as much as we did talking about it in the editing room." So that was actually fairly late in the process. I would say it was six weeks ago.

Crave Online: With all the destruction, we don't see any dead bodies. Is that just the fun of a comic book style?

Gale Anne Hurd: Well, certainly when it comes to Hulk, Hulk certainly gets mad and certainly can give as good as he gets. He's a defensive character. He's not someone who consciously attacks someone. Whenever Hulk comes to life, someone's already attacking him. So it was important to stay true to that aspect of his character. To be able to have fun with a comic book movie, you can destroy personal property. I don't think you want to see people killed.

Crave Online: I agree, but there were some military guys in the jeeps when they got smashed.

Gale Anne Hurd: Well, whenever you saw, including The Abomination, we wanted to make sure that you saw that people were still breathing.

Crave Online: Did you pick the title Incredible Hulk to hearken back to the show?

Gale Anne Hurd: Yes. It was funny because one of the jokes we all made was, "We're making the Hulk this time and this time he's Incredible." Louis growing up in France, his first exposure to the character was on the TV series. So it's something that was very much in the forefront of his mind as we participated in the development of the project.

Crave Online: What were your thoughts on the crossover with Tony Stark and SHIELD?

Gale Anne Hurd: The great thing is that it's very much part of the Marvel universe how the superheroes populate each other's stories. I gotta tell you, what a thrill it was the day we were able to film Robert Downey Jr.'s cameo. It was great. So I was thrilled. To be able to use Stark Industries, the blueprints for the sound cannons and other weaponry in the film is Stark Industries, so there's a lot of cross pollination. SHIELD, with the internet search trying to track down Mr. Blue and Mr. Green, who is Mr. Blue, to be able to do that through SHIELD was very cool.

Crave Online: Is that new territory for you? You couldn't have crossed over your other franchises before.

Gale Anne Hurd: No, only when you're in the Marvel Universe through Marvel studios that you can do that. Previously, I suppose you could find some way to populate Fantastic Four and X-Men because they're both at 20^th Century Fox but Spider-Man is at Sony. So you wouldn't be able to see Spider-Man and Hulk in the same movie.

Crave Online: What are the DVD plans?

Gale Anne Hurd: Well, we have a great amount of footage that was shot that didn't make it to the final film. Louis is compiling all of that. In fact, that's why he's not up here in Toronto with me is because he's finishing all those sequences for the Blu Ray DVD. There's a lot of additional footage from the action sequences that people will be able to find on the DVD. There is an entire arctic sequence. Deleted scenes and trimmed scenes will all be on the DVD.

Crave Online: So he needs to finish effects for those scenes?

Gale Anne Hurd: There are indeed. You're very smart to figure out that there are visual effects that are being completed that will appear on the DVD.

Crave Online: Have you seen the Blu Ray version yet?

Gale Anne Hurd: I have not. We have not seen it yet. Louis's still in the editing room. I don't think we'll see that for another month or so.

Crave Online: Are you thinking of reconstituting scenes back into the film?

Gale Anne Hurd: No, I think Louis's very happy with the film that was released so I believe these will all be added scenes. These will all be trims and deleted scenes that will be found on that menu as opposed to a different version of the movie.

Crave Online: What other behind the scenes stuff do you have?

Gale Anne Hurd: We had a crew with us the entire shoot so there's a lot of behind the scenes. You'll be able to tour the art department. You'll be able to see Louis and Edward acting out sequences while Edward was actually doing a revision of the screenplay so that he could incorporate those beats into the screenplay. You'll see the state of the art Mova technology that was used so that both Tim Roth and Edward Norton, the facial capture so that they could actually inform the performance of their alter egos of Hulk and Abomination. I think there's even one about the environmental choices that we made in the film to try to make it not only with a big green character, but as green as possible behind the scenes.

Crave Online: Opening up the creative process, what was the real story behind the scenes with revisions and rumors of conflict?

Gale Anne Hurd: It was actually a long and difficult shoot but everyone got along incredibly well, even with the hours. There were some days that were a 19 hour shooting day. But I think it was helpful in that we knew from the time we had the script from Edward that everyone was on the same page. The only issue I think was a question of how long the film should be.

Crave Online: Even Jon Favreau had contentious moments on Iron Man, so maybe that's the best way to make good movies?

Gale Anne Hurd: That went on, they were still getting visual effects shots while we were doing the final sound mix. That's the case when you have a film like this when the release date simply can't move. At the end of a long process, with everyone working seven day weeks, I think the remarkable thing actually is how well people get along.

Crave Online: Did you ever consider going over two hours?

Gale Anne Hurd: The movie's I believe an hour and 52 minutes, I think is the final running time. The biggest thing was how to open the movie. We were trying to figure out how much we needed to bring the audience up to speed on the origin story. That was really the only section that there were a lot of discussions about. I think that this is a way for the people who don't know the origin, there's a nod certainly to the TV series and we're able to start the film in Brazil with Bruce Banner trying to find a cure.