Louis Leterrier’s Abandoned Incredible Hulk Sequel Would Likely Have Corrected Hulk’s Decline in the MCU

The last time Hulk had a standalone movie was 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Directed by Louis Leterrier, the film was initially a part of the MCU, but the unloved film resulted in a course correction with Mark Ruffalo taking over from Edward Norton in The Avengers.

In an interview with ComicBook, however, Leterrier revealed his plans for an aborted sequel.

“Yeah there was like a whole sequel. There was like Grey Hulk, Red Hulks–there was a lot of good stuff that we were planning.”

The Incredible Hulk improved on the Shrek-like animation of Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003), but Digital Domain, the VFX company behind Leterrier’s Hulk, still wasn’t as realistic as expected.

The problem was fixed by ILM in The Avengers. The Hulk in the MCU’s first superhero team-up is considered the best version in likeness and body movements.

Moving forward with a sequel to The Incredible Hulk featuring Grey Hulk and Red Hulks without life-like creature effects would have been a disaster.

Leterrier indirectly acknowledged the problem of rendering an effective CG Hulk, let alone multiple Hulks, all with different personalities and skin tones:

“Hulk is a complex character within the Marvel Universe. You want the primeval Hulk… the rage Hulk. And then when you go Grey Hulk and Smart Hulk you lose that a little bit and you get a little bit more kiddish with it.”

While Hulk’s effects are better in The Avengers onwards, the trajectory of Bruce Banner / Hulk character suffered, reaching a low point in the Disney + She-Hulk TV show.

Hulk has been sidelined more and more as the MCU progressed. Part of the problem is that Universal and Disney have a complicated arrangement over rights to Hulk. Basically, Disney can’t do a standalone movie with the character, but can include him as a secondary character.

However, the principal problem is that Disney has reduced Hulk to a joke within the MCU. Hulk’s relationship with Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, which was teased in Avengers: Age of Ultron went nowhere, as did further explorations of how Banner lives with his alter ego, which had progressed nicely from Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk to The Avengers.

Instead, Hulk was either trotted out as the mindless muscle to help the Avengers punch their way through a problem.

And in She-Hulk, he becomes the butt of his cousin Jennifer Walters after she discovers her powers and that she is, well, stronger than Hulk.

Leterrier didn’t call it disrespect for Hulk. But he suggests Hulk was sidelined because Disney introduced too many characters too quickly.

“That was the fun of where I was in my movie, with the access to consciousness and all that stuff. That was really fun. And that’s what I was aiming to do. But take my time with it. Because there’s so many characters they want it all fast [laughs]. I like She-Hulk, but then you know, yoga between Hulk and… I was like ‘Okay! yeah, we’re very far from my Hulk.’”