Hulk 2 News
Tuesday, February 8, 2005

The following was originally posted on Fool.com:

David Gardner: Peter, I am looking at pretty low box office results for a couple of recent ones. I mean, The Punisher was not a big movie. Some people felt that The Hulk underachieved, and now we have Elektra. Do you think poor performance at the box office hurts the popularity of superhero movies overall? Do poorly reviewed or low-draw movies make it harder for Marvel to do good business in the future?

Peter Cuneo: Well, I don't agree with you that The Hulk was disappointing or Punisher. The Hulk did $250 million worldwide box, which is a huge box, and as you may recall, we had tremendous success with our toy line, which was a complete sellout, over $100 million worldwide. Our licensing was also very, very strong, and we had a complete sell-through of all of the consumer products associated with Hulk. So from our point of view, while some people may have been predicting higher box office, we were very thrilled with Hulk, and Hulk 2 is currently being worked on. That is the ultimate test for success or failure. If films make money, then there will be sequels. So Hulk 2 is being worked on now by Universal.

In addition, The Punisher was a relatively small-budget movie. It was an R-rated movie, which always limits the box office. Now regardless of what people thought of the box office on Punisher, we have had very good results with the DVD, and THQ (Nasdaq: THQI) has just released a video game, and it is doing extremely well. So in the end, Marvel will make money from The Punisher franchise, and once again, Punisher 2 is being worked on right now by Lions Gate (NYSE: LGF).

David Gardner: OK, so I didn't know about Punisher 2. I did know about Hulk 2, and for the record, I enjoyed the Hulk movie, but it does seem as if there were a lot of people had expected more of a summery-crazy fun feel to The Hulk rather than a more artistic expression of the character. Such a strong character in the Marvel library.

Peter Cuneo: Well, there will be a Hulk 2, and I believe that the creative approach will be different from Hulk 1. I think Marvel is a victim, to a certain degree, of our own success. We have set the bar so high with Spider-Man, of course, and with X-Men, that everybody expects every film we do to be a tremendous smash in the Top 10 of all-time box office worldwide. Of course, that is not going to happen.

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