Hulk (Jonathan Hensleigh)

HULK is a cancelled superhero film under the direction of Jonathan Hensleigh based on his script he wrote in August of 1997 which the movie was almost going to be based on the title character. That was cancelled in March 1998 due to high costs

Plot
Bruce Banner is working for a corporation called Amalgamated Dynamics for a private firm who are working on space travel and wants to have the first man mission to mars and learns about the condition of mars and taking traits from animals to split the genes and slicing them into bits and pieces of the test subjects and pushing the mutations further with a dose of gamma radiation and pulls three convicts out of death row named Deacon Hector and Novak and there is an escape attempt and something goes wrong and they all get blasted the three convicts and Bruce banner with a dose of gamma radiation and they began mutating, While Bruce mutates into the hulk and the three convicts turn into the insect men whom he battles with them and has to save the world.

Cast
Billy Crudup as Bruce Banner

Gregory Sporleder as Novak

Lynn Red Willams as Deacon

Production
Production started in December 1992 Marvel Studios was in discussions with Universal Studios for a Hulk film adaptation.Michael France and Stan Lee were invited into Universal's offices in 1994, with France writing the script. Universal's concept was to have the Hulk battle terrorists, an idea France disliked. By late 1996, Gale Anne Hurd and husband Jonathan Hensleigh signed on as producers. Industrial Light & Magic was hired to use computer-generated imagery to create the Hulk. For the second time, France was invited to write the script. By April 1997 Joe Johnston was directing with the film's title as The Incredible Hulk. Universal wanted Hensleigh to write the script since he worked with Johnston on the financially successful Jumanji. France was fired before he wrote a single page, but received money from Universal. However, France still wanted to write the script.

Johnston dropped out of directing in July 1997 in favor of October Sky, paving the way for Hensleigh to have his directing debut. John Turman was brought on to write two more drafts, the second of which was rewritten by Zak Penn. Turman's script featured the Leader and Rick Jones, as well as the canonical atomic explosion origin from the comics. Penn's script featured a fight scene with the Hulk and a school of sharks. Hensleigh himself started from scratch, coming up with a brand new storyline. In August 1997 Hensleigh completed his script, featuring Bruce Banner, who prior to the accident which will turn him into The Hulk, performs experiments with three gamma-irradiated insect DNA on convicts. This transforms the convicts into "insect men" that cause havoc.

Filming was set to start in December 1997 in Arizona for a mid-1999 release date, but was pushed back to April 1998. Hensleigh subsequently rewrote the script with J.J. Abrams. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski were also brought on board to rewrite with Hensleigh still attached as director.[1] In October 1997, Hulk had entered pre-production with the creation of prosthetic makeup and computer animation already underway. Gregory Sporleder was cast as "Novak", Banner's archenemy. Lynn "Red" Williams was cast as a convict who transforms into a combination of human, ant, and beetle

Why It Was Cancelled

 * 1) After 9 months on pre-production, Universal put the film on hold in March of 1998 on a 100 million Dollar budget.
 * 2) Universal worried about Hensleigh directing his first film. $20 million was already spent on script development, computer animation, and prosthetics work. Hensleigh immediately went to rewrite the script in order to lower the budget but it was so hard he left the project and the film was cancelled

Results

 * Michael France wrote his script in February of 2000 and Ang Lee was the director
 * James Schamus wrote a new script.
 * Eric Bana was cast as Bruce Banner.