UPTOWNflavor

If you’re a comic book-hero-movie fan like I am you are undoubtly amped about The Incredible Hulk! This film is not to be confused with the 2003 film Hulk which starred Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, and Sam Shepard. That film directed by Ang Lee drew ire from many hard core fans who felt the film was to artsy and not meaty enough on the action front, despite making close to $250 million worldwide. Last year rumors had been circulating that the franchise was to undergo a complete reboot. This time with a new director and with the casting one of my favorite actors Edward Norton. Norton plays scientist Bruce Banner who becomes the victim of his own botched experiment which causes him to transform into a hulking, green creature anytime he gets angry. Many who still had hard feelings about the character’s first incarnation to film couldn’t help but become curious as to how this would translate (or re-translate into film). Well, fast-forward to June 2008. The new film entitled “The Incredible Hulk” like the 1980′s TV series opens today and has gotten some positive reviews which will help woo back all those who left the theaters bitter 5 years ago. In an interesting twist, one of the key “smash” scenes (sure to be the action litmus test for die hard fans) takes place in Harlem. I don’t know why I didn’t report this before as pictures had surfaced as early as last year. Call it my senior moment. But I wanted to share it with you before you went to catch the film. You can see all of them at The Sixth Estate blog. Some of you might be scratching your heads thinking “I never saw them shoot The Incredible Hulk in Harlem!” That’s because the scenes were actually shot in Toronto. This is a common practice in the movie industry in order to save money. Filming in NYC is expensive. Especially when you want to shoot scenes of the magnitude required for action films. One thing will be very obvious from the picture…no Hulk! That’s because our green friend is made up of zero’s and one’s…he’s entirely computer rendered! The Harlem pics look pretty good though. I was particularly impressed by the shot of the Apollo where they tried to be quite faithful to the look of the newly renovated theatre. The Incredible Hulk opens in theaters today. I’ll be catching it at the Magic Johnson Theater this weekend. Below are two YouTube videos. One shot on the set last year. The other, a small clip of that fight scene.