Although things have finally changed, it looked for the longest time that Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk would go down in the Marvel Cinematic Universe history books for all the wrong reasons.
It was almost a decade until the second installment in the superhero franchise was welcomed back into the canonical fold via the late William Hurt’s return as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Captain America: Civil War, and even longer before it firmly established itself as an integral part of the mythology.
Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky was a key component of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, while Tim Blake Nelson’s comeback as the Leader in Captain America: New World Order will cement The Incredible Hulk‘s ascension from red-headed stepchild to pivotal film. And yet, Leterrier may have overestimated its importance in the grand scheme of things during an interview with ComicBook.
“I’m happy they’re healthy, I’m happy they’re alive. It’s incredible. I was there at the beginning of Marvel. This was a very special time. We created this studio. We created… Yeah, the MCU was birthed out of The Incredible Hulk. Tony Stark walked into The Incredible Hulk and said, ‘I’m putting together a team,’ and which one is it? Obviously, the Avengers. That was the beginning.”
We should probably point out that The Incredible Hulk was released six weeks after Iron Man, which was of course where Tony Stark met Nick Fury for the first time and heard about the Avengers Initiative. In addition, not a single soul from Leterrier’s blockbuster appeared in The Avengers – or any other MCU project for that matter – for the next eight years, so saying he “birthed” the saga as we know it feels like a stretch to put it lightly.
