While doing press for his new movie,
Life of Pi, director Ang Lee told
Vulture that 2003's
Hulk gave him useful experience with computer-generated images that he was able to apply to his latest film.
I learned quite a bit about CG from The Hulk, and I wouldn't have been able to do Life of Pi without that. But it's easier to create an animal, because there exists a good reference — so a tiger or a hyena is easier than a 2,000-pound rage monster. The hardest thing to do is the weight, not the skin, because there's no reference for something that size that is agile. And the technology's improved, so you can have more details with Mark's Hulk. My problem is that I took the whole thing too seriously. I should have had more fun with it, instead of all the psychodrama! [Laughs.]
Ang Lee's
Hulk film is widely considered a disappointment. The worldwide box office receipts totaled $245 million, while the budget was $137 million, but I'm sure marketing costs aren't factored in. Many fans were put off by the psychodrama that Ang spoke of above, as well as waiting 42 minutes to finally see the Hulk's first appearance. If that didn't bother fans, the mutated Hulk dogs and Hulk himself growing absurdly taller and bigger after each transformation certainly did. The film will probably be best known for having one of the largest drops in its second weekend for a film that opened at #1, with a -69.7% drop.