"Hulk" TV Series In the Works

[ClarkKent_DC]

From The Hollywood Reporter: "ABC Preps TV Return for 'Incredible Hulk' " 

[Alan M.]

ClarkKent_DC said:

I don't think CGI is yet cheap enough, or effective enough, to do that for a weekly television series, but I admit I'm no expert on its capabilities.

Oh, CGI is certainly cheap enough; Star Trek: Voyager and Babylon 5 had CGI bad guys over a decade ago (Species 8472 and The Shadows, respectively); nowadays, Doctor Who has CGI characters showing up pretty regularly.

TurningPoint said:

If CGI is used, then the Hulk would surely have to be serialized into possibly 12 30-minute episodes.

I'm not sure how one follows from the other.

[Dagwan]

Somewhere online (found it!) there's a video by a CGI effects company that does CGI for shows like Law and Order. What's that? You don't remember seeing any CGI in Law and Order?

Well, here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k

I think that CGI is a LOT cheaper than it was when JMS was making Shadows appear on the screen, and a CGI Hulk would be well within the budget of an hour-long drama series.

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[ClarkKent_DC]

Wow! Thanks, Dagwan!

So, all those times I watched Law & Order and the lawyers were on the courthouse steps, that was fake?

Y'know, those scenes from Ugly Betty surprised me. The pilot was shot in New York, but for the first season or two, the show was filmed in California. The first season, they would go to New York for outdoor location shooting, including at a house in Queens that stood in for the Suarez home. But during the second season, with a smaller budget, they didn't make those trips, instead using a very obviously fake-looking set that attempted to duplicate that house in Queens. Later, though, they moved the whole production to New York and made sure you knew it, with lots of location shots in every episode.

Also, seeing these, some of those street scenes, particularly the ones from Monk, are on obviously cheesy sets, but the magic of CGI makes them look authentic!

So, I am persuaded that a CGI Hulk could work. But I still don't think a wholly animated figure would, at least, not if animation isn't any better than it was in Daredevil. However, the kind of thing where a person's image is superimposed on another's image would look cool. Like in The Social Network; two major characters are twin brothers Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss. The way that was done, one actor's face and voice was used for both brothers, with a body double reacting to him when he played the one character, then he'd switch clothes and play the other brother, and the footage was melded together.

Or that Gatorade commercial where Michael Jordan played basketball one-on-one against his younger self from his Chicago Bulls days (and a still younger Michael Jordan from his University of Chapel Hill days challenged the other two.)

[Philip Portelli]

It's one thing for a commercial or a "guest" villain but quite another for your main character! I remember how George Lucas touted Jar Jar Binks as an amazing alien that looked alien, not a big guy in a furry suit like Chewbacca. But Chewie was there in the shot, on the set directly interacting with the heroes. The reactions were real because he was real. I feel it may be better that way with this new Hulk as well, IMHO.

[ClarkKent_DC]

TurningPoint said:

If CGI is used, then the Hulk would surely have to be serialized into possibly 12 30-minute episodes. I doubt the networks would be interested in that unless they're willing to go with a format like Cliffhangers, only this time have a 30-minute serial backed-up by a main feature as suggested by John J O'Connor.

I can't imagine this happening, if only because there hasn't been a half-hour drama on network television since the 1980s. (The last one was Sidekicks, a one-season wonder on CBS.) They used to be plentiful -- like Highway Patrol, Dragnet, Adam-12 -- but have vanished.

Part of the reason Law & Order is structured with the cop story in the first half of the hour and the prosecution in the second half was a plan to syndicate the show in half-hour chunks. The idea was that, at the time -- the early '80s -- hour-long dramas were a hard sell in syndication. But even that didn't come to pass. (Instead, the first seven years' worth of reruns went to A&E, which put them in heavy rotation and drummed up interest for more; then the second seven years' worth went to TNT, which put them in heavy rotation.)