With the return of Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky to She-Hulk, will the oft-neglected 2008 Incredible Hulk film see a revival among MCU fans?
2008’s The Incredible Hulk has often been treated as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s designated forgotten child. It regularly lands near the bottom of MCU film rankings, it is the only Phase One film not available on Disney+ (due to rights issues, but fan demand has not been prominent as with Spider-Man), and thanks to the recasting of the title character, many fans wonder if it is even in continuity. The return of Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky to the role in 2022’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has led to some fans remembering the film, looking back at the picture and starting to, at last, re-evaluate the MCU Hulk film.
The Incredible Hulk was the follow-up to the first Iron Man film, as well as a kind of sequel to the 2003 Ang Lee-directed Hulk movie. With all this baggage, sitting in the long shadow of one of the greatest comic book films of all time (the former) and attempting to follow up a rather controversial film (the latter), the film had the odds stacked against it in 2008 and was seen as an underwhelming next step. Indeed, while it’s hard to remember now, many doubted the MCU’s success, and 2011’s Thor was predicted to end the idea of a shared universe.
The Slow Revival of The Incredible Hulk
Thanks to Edward Norton being recast with Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers, who took over Hulk duties for the MCU from there on out, and the majority of the characters and plot points from the film receiving no follow-up, many fans could simply pretend The Incredible Hulk did not exist. That is until William Hurt reprised his role as General Ross for Captain America: Civil War in 2016. This, of course, told fans that regardless of Banner’s recasting, the other Hulk characters from this film still were a part of the universe.
Then in 2022, the popular — though controversial — She-Hulk featured Emil Blonsky, again securing that this film was part of the MCU canon. Blonsky’s rather touching episode got fan attention and praise and sparked online interest in the original film, which was already under discussion thanks to the attention being paid to the She-Hulk show. There was also some interest in 2015 in bringing back Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross to the franchise, thanks to the fandom’s general dislike of Banner’s romance with Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron and desire to see both united with comic-accurate love interests like Hawkeye (or the Winter Soldier) and Betty.
Will Bruce Banner Get His Happy Ending?
All of this gathering fan interest in the film has the potential to get the movie re-evaluated. The Incredible Hulk did have the burden of being a sequel to a differently cast film, but there are many strong points in the movie that should be acknowledged. Blonsky, who has repeatedly been voted as the designated ‘worst MCU villain,’ is, in fact, a strong portrayal of a tragic character, desperate to do his job and slowly growing more addicted to power until it takes him over. The romance between Bruce and Betty was one of the franchise’s better love stories, and the clever horror movie techniques used to reveal the Hulk made for one of the MCU’s best sequences. The film had many good points, which don’t deserve to be placed at the bottom of the franchise’s proverbial “Ranking” lists.
The Hulk franchise has struggled for a long time with rights issues. Like X-Men and Spider-Man, the enormous green rage monster’s status in the franchise has been dragged through rights court hell for over a decade and has suffered now worse than Spidey, thanks in part to generating less fan demand. But with She-Hulk being popular and the original film returning to the fandom’s consciousness thanks to the show, there may be a chance for The Incredible Hulk after all. Since Bruce’s story, unlike the Avengers who exited the franchise in Endgame (Tony, Steve and Natasha), is still up in the air, a final Hulk story that builds on the original film may be long overdue — and if the fandom demands it, Disney may make it so.
