The Incredible Hulk was one in all the first profitable Marvel TV exhibits. The ‘70s drama earned numerous accolades, including three Emmy nominations and one win. But surprisingly, when the project came to showrunner Kenneth Johnson, he wasn’t remotely . Ultimately, Johnson agreed to write and develop the sequence primarily based on one situation.
After ‘The Bionic Woman,’ Kenneth Johnson didn’t need to do extra sci-fi
In the mid-’70s, Johnson was working on the hit Cyborg-inspired drama, The Bionic Lady. So when he was approached to develop a Marvel sequence, the producer feared his profession would get pushed into one particular area of interest.
“Late in the second season of The Bionic Woman, Universal approached me and said they had acquired the rights to five of the Marvel Comic titles and asked which one I wanted to do, I said ‘Gee, none of them,’” Johnson advised Starburst. “I wasn’t eager to become known as the sci-fi or superhero guy.”
“I had always envisioned having a more eclectic career, rather than just being stuck in the genre of science fiction,” he added. “And I was not interested in doing something funny costumes, spandex, or primary colors.”
He agreed to do ‘The Incredible Hulk’ on 1 situation
Whereas studying Les Miserables, Johnson was impressed to create a contemporary model of Hulk’s story. He preferred the thought of the hero being a fugitive, and he advised Common he’d take on the mission in the event that they gave him full management of the story and casting.
Mark Ruffalo and Edward Norton’s Hulks Are Secretly Linked By a Deleted ‘The Incredible Hulk’ Scene
“I realized there was a way to take a little bit of Victor Hugo, a little bit of Robert Louis Stevenson, and this ludicrous comic book I’d never heard of before called The Incredible Hulk, and turn it into a really gripping, human drama,” Johnson stated to Starburst. “So I told Universal I would do it if everyone would just leave me alone, if the casting would be my choice.”
Kenneth Johnson made ‘The Incredible Hulk’ palatable for grownup audiences
Johnson wished The Incredible Hulk to be a mature, well-performed drama. And he knew actor Invoice Bixby would match completely.
“Bill Bixby was the first and only actor I sent the script to, as I wanted a classy guy who would bring an adult following to the project, [which] I absolutely intended to be an adult, psychological drama,” Johnson stated in his Starburst interview. “And that’s what we did.”
The sequence went on to turn out to be a global hit. It lasted 5 seasons and was accompanied by three TV films. And Stan Lee — who created the Hulk for Marvel Comics in 1962 — was an enormous fan of the present and made his first cameo in The Trial of the Hulk in 1989.
“The Hulk television show I thought was wonderful,” Lee advised the Television Academy. “It was created and done by Kenneth Johnson, who I think did a brilliant job — He took a character which in live-action television might have been unbearably foolish-looking with nonsensical stories, and he made it as palatable for grown-ups as for kids.”