Thursday, April 24, 2008

DOC BRUCE BANNER, BELTED BY CGI

ITEM! With two Massive Marvel Movies coming out practically back-to-back, how come all we’re hearing about is the Iron Man Movie? Well for starters, I can tell you after seeing it that Iron Man is going to be a behemoth box office bonanza of Brobdingnagian proportions (see my opening weekend predictions). Everyone at Marvel Entertainment is busy right now pumping and pimping that puppy for all it’s worth. As the first in-house, self-financed release from The House of Ideas, they need Iron Man to be a monsterous money-maker for all kinds of reasons. Luckily, Jon “Fan Fave” Favreau and crew have taken very good care of them on that score.

But what about the June 13 release of The Incredible Hulk? The truth is that the Hulk movie is worrying everyone. It’s had an incredibly troubled production. Sensitive star and stellar screenplay writer Edward Norton and Fancy French Director Louis Leterrier have been getting into it with the studio over the editing of the movie. I also hear that Louie had some trouble keeping party-girl Liv “Walk This Way” Tyler on-set and on-time. Apparently William Hurt wasn’t too happy with the rug they gave him to wear as General Thunderbolt Ross. I know the feeling! When I filmed my cameo for the movie last month, they told me they would “fix” my hairpiece in “post,” whatever-the-hell that means. In other words, typically Hollywood hi-jinks.

But the thing that’s gotten everyone ultra-nervous has been the CGI work of Rhythm and Hues Studios. Leterrier was originally so underwhelmed by the CGI in the prior movie (that which cannot-be-named-out-loud, as we like to call it) that he planned on doing this one with mostly old-school prosthetics and animatronics. From what I’ve heard, he’s still wishing that he’d stuck to his ever lovin’ guns on that one. Your Uncle Stanley was as shocked as everyone else when the trailer came out with visible flaws and seams in the effects work. And don't even get me started on what happened to Gil Kane's fabulously finny freak-ears on the Abomination. Apparently as we speak everyone is scrambling around like mad doing green-screen reshoots with an actor in makeup and and some animatronic puppets. A worried studio exec sent the Smilin’ One a couple of these shots (see top-secret picture above and leaked footage below) along with a piteous plea for me to intercede and help get the movie back on track. I wish I could. The sad thing is that your Uncle Stan is only an executive producer, which as we all know is Hollywood’s way of paying you a lot of money to sit down and shut up.

Maybe the suits are overreacting, anyways. That’s practically what they’re paid to do. Judge for yourself, True Believers! Irving Forbush is embedding one of those linky things to the latest effects reshoot footage below. Enjoy!



Excelsior!
Smiley

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