Maybe Tobey Maguire Should've Played The Incredible Hulk

It's Wall-E's World

If you emerged from Saturday's city-wide, Paps vs. Surfs caste riots with two or more limbs (and both flip-flops) intact, consider yourselves one of the lucky ones: It was a massacre out there, folks. Slow the bleeding with the box office numbers from this robust, bullet-bending moviegoing weekend:

1. Wall-E - $62.5 million
Realizing that their last vision of a dystopian future-Earth—2006's Cars, in which automobiles ruled the planet, fueled by an endlessly replenishable supply of human livestock bred in subterranean people-farms—was perhaps a little too dark a subject matter for their intended family audiences, Pixar decided to simplify this time around. The result: A nearly silent love story featuring a binoculars-on-treads that critics are hailing as a modern classic. Disney can only be overjoyed with the results: Wall-E earned the second-highest June opening of all time, and Pixar's third-highest debut, behind Finding Nemo. The only person to come away disappointed? Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who saw in the parable a painful metaphor for his failed attempts at winning the heart of his own Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, Kathy Griffin. Upon returning home, he instantly set upon smashing any remotely Wall-E-ish thing in his garage to pieces— which included the Segway they rode on their first date, and an early Apple prototype made from parts of a Speak n' Spell and a hand-mixer.

The 'Smart' Money is on Anybody But Mike Myers

With the summer solstice finally arriving in our rear-view mirrors over the weekend, join us in recognizing the first real box-office hits and misses of the season:

1. Get Smart - $39.2 million
The middling-at-best TV adaptation claimed the weekend essentially by default, but it also fell almost $1 million short of the $40 million opening it needed to trigger its principals' rumored sequel clauses. Will Warner Bros. call it even and commission a script by lunch? Is Anne Hathaway renegotiating with her bad-boy paramour for further "publicity consulting" in 2010? Will Steve Carell meet Don Adams at the Get Smart 2 premiere? Only time will tell!

Bad Math and Short Memories Spin Wacky 'Hulk' Hate-In

Two percent doesn't sound like much of a quantity on its face, but it's apparently more than enough room for studio execs to rejoice after recent box-office scans reveal this year's grosses are slightly up from those of Summer 2007. Observers attribute part of the bump to "better-than-expected" openings for films like Kung-Fu Panda, Sex and the City, The Happening and The Incredible Hulk, with the latter film's $55 million opening rounding out Marvel Studios' blockbuster tandem with Iron Man.

Naturally Marvel boss David Maisel will be doing victory laps for rest of the season, but after the jump, join us in parsing a bizarre contrarian argument gaining traction against the studio's acknowledged re-do of Ang Lee's brooding 2003 Hulk. Hint: It's bullshit.

Barbara Walters And Ellen DeGeneres Fondly Recall Their First Steamy Meeting

For 'Incredible Hulk' Star William Hurt, It's All About The Back-Breaking Work

Anti-smoking watchdog groups might not be too pleased with William Hurt's turn as the stogy-chomping Gen. Thaddeus Ross in The Incredible Hulk, but the gruff, unscrupulous character was one of the film's pleasant surprises. Like Jeff Bridges as Iron Man's Obadiah Stane, the Hollywood veteran was rendered almost unrecognizable, called upon to play the villain beneath some bushy facial outcroppings and the corrugated complexion of a former pretty-boy pushing 60. Sitting down with a starstruck CNN correspondent, Hurt couldn't underscore enough just how "not fun" the creative process was:

CNN: Well, how much fun did you have playing this role?

Hurt: I don't call it fun, I call it work. If it was fun, they wouldn't call it work. I mean, play is play, fun is fun and work is work. They're different.

'The Incredible Hulk' Flexes His Guns

A just-about-perfect L.A. weekend is now over. Stir a little extra Hazelnut Coffee Mate into your World's Sexiest Assistant mug, and bite absentmindedly into some raspberry-jelly-filled box office numbers. We'll get through this:

1. The Incredible Hulk - $54.538 million
For first reactions to The Incredible Hulk—Universal's attempt at "rebootting" the Freakishly Betrapezoided One's franchise—we defer to non other than Hulk-fan-on-the-street Dante Reno. Approached by Variety for comment, Reno proudly gestured to the area of his brain once designated for foreign languages, which, after two punishing hours of Dolby Digital Cinema Smaaaash™ effects, had now solidified into a useless clump of scar tissue. Still, that smile, and the words, "Aw, dude it was awesome," suggests to us that it was all worth it. Hulk back. Hulk smash. Hulk good.

Publicity-Averse Ed Norton Reveals Previously Unknown Sense Of Humor In 'Hulk' Short

"We're trying to resuscitate this franchise from the fucking cellar!"

The Donut Of Truth

Green skin, black lungs: That's what smoking-in-film watchdog group the American Medical Association Alliance is accusing Universal of showcasing in The Incredible Hulk, and thereby encouraging its teen audiences of picking up the deadly habit in order to emulate the cool on-screen persona of William Hurt's stogie-loving army general. From their press release:

“Shame on ‘The Incredible Hulk’ for unnecessarily adding smoking to a sequel that would have been just as exciting and believable without it,” said Dianne Fenyk, President of the [American Medical Association (AMA) Alliance]. “Universal Studios and the other Hollywood studios should be especially embarrassed for using comic book movies, which they market to children and know youth will want to see, to promote tobacco.” [...]

Presence Of Iron Man Meant To Reassure A Restless Fanboy Nation That 'Hulk' Will Get It Right

Help is On the Way For Children Threatened by 'Hulk Smash Hands'

It's been a while since The Incredible Hulk lumbered into a completely fabricated media controversy, a drought no doubt prompting the LA Times to report today's scandal that... that... Sweet Jesus, we can't even write it. John Horn, would you please step in?

If your kids simply must watch the Cartoon Network, they will be overwhelmed with ads for all kinds of tooth-rotting junk, including Pop Tarts, Lucky Charms, Reese's Puffs and some concoction called Froot Loops Cereal Straws. But critics say there's a different pediatric health risk on the cable channel — promotions tied to violent, PG-13-rated movies. ...

'Ant-Man' Cometh, and More Fallout From 'Iron Man''s Golden Weekend

Gosh, Marvel Studios, just take a minute to chew your food, would you? Less than 24 hours after its debut picture Iron Man finished a $100 million opening weekend, studio boss David Maisel was all over town announcing Marvel's forthcoming slate — through 2011. As we noted yesterday, an Iron Man sequel is naturally to follow on April 30, 2010, while an adaptation of Thor will drop that same summer on June 10. It gets fairly outrageous from there: The First Avenger: Captain America appears May 11, 2011, followed by The Avengers — combining Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and Thor a mere two months later. (The studio says its sitting out 2009 as a result of a development lag left over from the writers strike.)

And there's more: "Ant-Man also is in development," notes Variety, "with Edgar Wright attached to write and direct, but that project has yet to be dated." And some fucking crackhead fanboy just started a rumor that Matthew McConaughey leads the candidates to portray Captain America. And then, after the jump, there's the Iron Man Oscar hype. Jesus Christ — stop the Marvel gossip mill already, we want off.

Edward Norton Enters The 'Denial' Phase Of Grieving For 'The Incredible Hulk'

'Passionate' Edward Norton Quietly Plots Revenge For Stalled Masterpiece 'Hulk'

Try as it might, Universal is facing another orgy of resistance to its big-screen efforts on behalf of the Incredible Hulk comic franchise. This time around, five years after Ang Lee's expensive, cheesy The Hulk flatlined into muscly green oblivion, The Incredible Hulk has studio flacks spinning, onlookers shrugging and temperamental star Edward Norton naturally pouting over the whole drama. Reports NY Timesman Brooks Barnes:

Mr. Norton and Marvel, which has the right of final approval on the film, have sparred in recent weeks over trims, among other issues, said studio executives involved, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Norton — who was hired to rewrite the script along with playing the lead — has made it clear he won't cooperate with publicity plans if he's not happy with the final product, these people said.

'The Incredible Hulk' Trailer Offers Promise Of Giant, Green, Angry Thing

The just-released trailer for The Incredible Hulk shows few signs of the shocking truth—splashed across the pages of The Finkeian Tattler—about the power-play going on behind the scenes. (For the uninitiated: Ed Norton has been offering up his creative point of view, which differs slightly from that of the 1200 other cooks required to make a superhero blockbuster. We know! Entirely shocking!) Based on these two-minutes of footage, it seems the touchy-feely beast of Ang Lee's version, weighed down with boring daddy-issues and roaming the streets of San Francisco like an HGH-abusing Gumby, has been replaced with something a little more in line with what Hulk fanatics expect from their gamma-ray-enhanced avocado-beasts. GRAGGGHHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

• incrediblehulk.marvel.com