In the first two live-action Hulk movies we've had, they've never really gotten the Mr. Hyde to Bruce Banner's Dr. Jekyll 100% right. Created entirely through CGI, the Hulk has never really looked life-like and has been a serious detriment. So when the Hulk shows up in The Avengers, they will have to do something to right that wrong - and they are.
Mark Ruffalo, who was announced as the new Bruce Banner at this year's Comic Con, recently spoke with Vulture and revealed that Marvel is ditching the pure-CGI Hulk in favor of motion capture. According to the actor, they plan on doing it in the same way as James Cameron's Avatar, with "stop-action, stop-motion capture." What this means is that Ruffalo will be the first actor to actually "play" the Hulk since Lou Ferrigno in the television series. As for playing Banner in his human form, Ruffalo is over the moon, saying that he is planning to do his performance in the style of Bill Bixby: "He was an everyman in it. He's always on the run and trying to find love. It's really a sympathetic character, before he turns into the Hulk and fucks everything up."
It seems as though Ruffalo has made a strange mix of "stop-motion animation" and "motion capture," but I assume that he means the latter. Even though I like the film overall, I've never understood why Louis Leterrier didn't use this same method for The Incredible Hulk. The technology has obviously been around, yet it was simply ignored. Taking visual effects from James Cameron falls in the category of "great ideas." Let's now just hope that Ruffalo's trademark goofiness doesn't make its way into the final Hulk character.
