New Posters for “The Avengers” and Why The Hulk is Getting a Makeover

Here are the new posters for Marvel Studios’ The Avengers, courtesy of Marvel.com.

As some of you may know, Mark Ruffalo is replacing Edward Norton (who replaced Eric Bana) as The Hulk in next year’s The Avengers. While the ins and outs of how this came to be are still a little hazy, there is one thing that Producer Kevin Feige was clear on…the actual look of The Hulk will change as well. While some die hard fanboys might protest, after reading an article from the L.A. Times this new approach could be more interesting than the recent Hulks we’ve seen. This is what Feige had to say:

“He’ll be about the same size he was in “The Incredible Hulk” [which was about 9 feet tall] or maybe a little bit smaller. His muscles won’t be quite as cut. We figure he’s been the Hulk now for a few years and [his physique is changing]. He’s not as cut or as ripped as he was in “The Incredible Hulk.” The most important thing is that face. As you can already see in that concept painting, it is — more than any Hulk that’s ever been done in live action — a Hulk that let’s you see the actor in there. You will be able to see Ruffalo in there. That was a big revelation for us. It’s just a concept painting, but in that you can see the [influence of Marvel Comics pioneer and original Hulk artist Jack] Kirby, as people have already pointed out, but also, and equally important in this case, Ruffalo’s eyes and his cheek structure. It is him.”

Later in the interview, he also added this:

It was something we actively avoided before. Hulk was Hulk, he’s not any one actor and Hulk should look like Hulk. It was  like Iron Man’s armor, in a way, it wouldn’t change depending on the actor wearing it. But we’ve taken a different approach because Hulk is Banner and, frankly, we came to question our approach. Why are we not doing it this way?  So we did a few designs that put Ruffalo into it, and we immediately saw how much more you feel for the creature. When you keep that connection going between Banner and the Hulk and you have characters around him trying to reach Banner inside — “Bruce, calm down,” and all of that classic Hulk stuff — it means more if you see the same actor throughout. I think before it was something we thought might look silly. We were nervous about getting it good enough [via visual effects] to work. Frankly, it was the same way we were nervous early on about making Steve Rogers skinny for “Captain America.” Is this going to look disturbing? Is this going to look silly? In the end, we got that one right. We’re going to get this one right.”

I agreed that they definitely did an outstanding job with making the skinny Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger, so I’m interested to see what they do with Hulk. Although, for a minute when they said that the Hulk won’t be as “cut” it brought some humorous images about a Fat Hulk to mind.

What are your thoughts about this? Should they just leave well enough alone? What do you think about Ruffalo as The Hulk?