Marvel has high hopes for new 'Incredible Hulk' film

LOS ANGELES — Bad buzz. Creative infighting. Superhero gridlock at the multiplex. For Marvel Studios, handling gamma rays is starting to look like a cakewalk compared to turning "The Incredible Hulk" into a movie franchise.

The unjolly green giant, born from a botched gamma bomb experiment in a 1962 comic book, belongs to an elite class of superhero. In Marvel's stable of characters, which includes the X-Men and the Silver Surfer, only Spider-Man outsells him. The Hulk, along with his emotionally withdrawn alter ego, Dr. Bruce Banner, has spawned television shows, theme-park rides and best-selling toys.

But big-screen glory has eluded him. In 2003, "Hulk," a pricey attempt to give the monster a Spidey-size movie career, flopped after the director Ang Lee's artsy creature was ridiculed as Gumbyesque. That picture, which cost $150 million to make, sold a disappointing $132 million in tickets in North America and made less overseas.

Now Marvel is attempting what it openly calls a do-over. Starring Edward Norton, "The Incredible Hulk," set for a June 13 release, will serve up more action (Hulk battles a new creature called Abomination) and more female-friendly themes. (Banner is madly in love.) The monster was mute in Lee's film, but this one speaks, a nod to the campy 1978-82 television series that starred Bill Bixby and the bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno (resplendent in green body paint).

Marvel and its distribution partner, Universal Pictures, expect "The Incredible Hulk" to be nothing short of a blockbuster, citing strong sales for a newly introduced "Hulk" comic book series as one reason for optimism.

"We are really proud about how the new film came out," said David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios. "The 2003 movie was like test-driving a car. We were able to see what people liked and did not." But signs of trouble abound, leading to lip-biting among some Marvel investors, Hulk fans and movie theater owners. "There are people who clearly don't think it looks good and are expecting a bomb," said Doug Creutz, an entertainment analyst at Cowan & Co.

The trailer, engineered to vanquish memories of the 2003 film, arrived last month and instantly polarized the comic book crowd. The look of the new Hulk — meaner and greener — won praise from some fans online, but several influential tastemakers held their noses.

Entertainment Weekly pronounced the computer-generated effects "totally fake-looking," while obsessedwithfilm.com deemed the project "just hideous."

And then there's the bickering among the creative team.