A Terrible HULK Rumor!!! Hopefully This Is NOT TRUE!!!

Hey folks, Harry here... As I've written in many supportive posts on Universal's & Marvel's HULK film that's coming out June 20th... I fully support the movie, the script that has been written and have the utmost faith in director Ang Lee and the marvelous cast that they have assembled. I was even delighted to see this past week that the Writer's Guild had given co-screenwriting credits to both John Turman and Michael France (in addition to the direct shooting draft writer James Schamus) for their contributions in the long and storied series of screenplays that eventually evolved into the current one. It is a shame that David Hayter also didn't pick up a credit on this script as, even though I loathed his particular draft, reading the final script, I clearly can see his better contributions remaining, with all the lessor parts gone.

In the last 3 days I've been getting extremely high level reports from folks working on THE HULK that tell me that STAN LEE & JACK KIRBY will NOT be being credited in the final feature as having CREATOR credits. That instead, we'll be getting "Based On The MARVEL Characters."

Now why would this happen? After all, SPIDER-MAN had the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko credits. It has become part of the credits to give credit to the originators of the properties, and surely they know it is the RIGHT THING TO DO. So why?

Apparently this has to do with the STAN LEE Lawsuit against MARVEL regarding a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo over profit participation and what not. The CREATOR credit isn't a mandatory thing, but rather... a discretionary credit that MARVEL can decide to include or not to include and with this "suit" apparently they're deciding or at the very least CONSIDERING not giving credit where it deserves to be placed.

OK.

Personally I completely understand being pissed at someone for filing a lawsuit against you. I get that type of frustration, BUT... Jack Kirby's Estate isn't suing you guys currently (that I know of). Even though personally I would love to see the Jack Kirby Estate getting some share in the profiting of characters that he created... even though nothing is on paper, I'd do it just because it is the right damn thing to do. It seems so many times in modern society we have corporations that make decisions on what's the LEGAL thing to do versus the RIGHT thing to do... And in the case of MARVEL, I've always found it very odd that a company that makes money based upon characters that have a history of choosing to do the right thing even at the danger of massive personal danger... well it is ironic that the same company doesn't share the ideals that they profit from.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE RIGHT NOW... It isn't about giving Jack Kirby's estate any money (though they should), this is a case of something that is purely expressive of appreciation, not at any real personal expense.

I will not say I won't see Universal's HULK because they might not be crediting Jack Kirby and Stan Lee... Because I know I'll see it because it is my dream and wish to see it since early childhood... However, it saddens me to think that when I go see that big emerald brute, and when I see that fantastic MARVEL logo, that it might be with a hint of sadness that we live in forgetful times, times of spoilt unappreciative corporations that do not acknowledge the past, not because they don't know it, but because they are acting on a PETTY and CRUEL BASE NATURE.

I will be contacting Avi Arad tomorrow after I see X2. Hopefully, not only will I be able to say I loved X2, but he'll tell me that YES... Jack Kirby and Stan Lee will receive the proper credit on THE HULK. Right, Avi?