Like every comic-book fan in the world, I was a little taken aback by the Ang Lee version of Hulk. I felt that this was not the Hulk movie I had been expecting. I thought, “Aw, too bad. The Hulk is dead and gone now. They won’t make another one for 20 years.” Cut to four years later, I’m in LA and I get a call from Marvel Studios. They say: “We want you to make a Hulk movie. And not like Ang’s movie. We want to go back to the basics, and start the series again.”

I was nervous at first, as a French film-maker making his American debut. I went back to France and started doodling, and coming up with ideas. Yet it was actually my wife who convinced me. She said: “Remember how we loved the TV show when we were young? Well, that’s what you should do. Go back to the show, and remember the pathos.” And that’s what I wanted to do – to tell the story of a man on the run, trying to get his life back together.

I tried to make the screenplay as simple as possible. I didn’t want to do an “origins” story – you know, a guy who’s a nerd, who’s introduced for the first 20 minutes, then you have 10 minutes of the accident, and 30 minutes more afterwards, so you don’t get to the Hulk himself for nearly an hour. Instead, I wanted to start with him already on the run. I wanted you to be able to watch Ang’s Hulk and get something out of it, and then watch ours and get something totally different, while appreciating them both. There was, at times, a lot of pressure on me, because people thought, “If Ang Lee can’t get a Hulk movie right, then nobody can!”

Then, of course, there’s the effects. The thing is, you can have the best effects in the world but they won’t hold if the story doesn’t work. Alternatively, you can have a stick figure as a character, but if the story’s amazing you can be, like, “Oh my God! That stick figure’s in trouble!” I’d never done effects like this before. I was really afraid. My approach was, basically, let’s see as little of the Hulk as possible. It was an escape tactic, just like Spielberg with Jaws. I thought, “Let’s keep him under wraps for as long as possible, and only show him at the end!” Thankfully, the effects were so good that I brought the Hulk out much sooner than I had planned.

But really, movies like these are the Russian roulette of film-making. They cost so much and they’re so effects-dependent. They can work, or they can be an absolute disaster. But, by having a strong screenplay and an amazing cast of nonCGI actors, you buy yourself some credibility points with the audience.

I’d love to make another Hulk movie. But this one would have to cross-pollinate the Marvel Universe. Hulk v Iron Man, that sort of thing. That’s what would excite me. There are so many plot lines to choose from. You can’t make the same movie over and over again. Because, really, how many times can he say, “Don’t make me angry – you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!”?

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