Note: So we're assuming the TIH script we got hold of is genuine. (Thanks to io9 reader The Ugly aka HowlingMan for passing it along!) It certainly seems pretentious enough, starting with a Joseph Campbell quote and including references to great literature. After reading the whole thing, here's the bottom line: the second Hulk movie should have been a good 10 minutes longer, including a few crucial scenes that beef up some of the Hulk's character and flesh out his backstory. But the vast majority of the scenes were cut for very good reason, if this 2007 draft is at all close to the shooting script.

Here's our rundown of the deleted scenes from the script, including whether you can glimpse them in the movie's trailer:

1) The famous Arctic scene.

A helicopter drops Bruce Banner off in the tundra, and he shambles off alone. He drops his backpack, stopping only to retrieve an object and jam it into his waistband, then trudges off under the Aurora Borealis. He has a brief, almost indistinguishable flashback of a woman's body on the ground, and flames. The object he grabbed turns out to be a gun, and he tries to shoot himself, but turns into the Hulk instead. He catches the bullet in his palm, flattened. Then he jumps into the Arctic sea and we see a monstrous green form underwater.
Featured in the trailer? Yes. Briefly.

2) Bruce meets Samson.

After Betty spots Bruce at the pizza place where he's hiding out, she confronts him, and introduces him to her new boyfriend, Samson Adams. It's awkward. Bruce promises to meet them back at Betty's house, but then splits. That leads to the scene where Betty drives after him in the rain.
Featured in the trailer? No.

3) Samson jokes about being a shrink.

This scene is a bit painful, to be honest. Bruce, Betty and Samson have dinner together (Samson cooks) and they talk about Samson's worst psychiatric patient:

SAMSON
...and I said “Miss So-and-so, I’ve been analyzing your ‘condition’ for nearly three months and I think I can say conclusively that your issues are more Caffeinated-UnCaffeinated than Manic-Depressive... They all laugh, even Banner chuckles.

BETTY
...You’re not so much Multiple Personality as Spoiled Brat...

BANNER
Your problem isn’t ADD so much as laziness.

BETTY
It makes you sound cruel. But Samson takes a few of these to pay for all the
free work he does.

SAMSON
Pro-whiners to pay for the pro-bono...

And then Bruce suddenly starts crying. No, really. Bad shrink banter makes Brucey cry. Actually, it's because "It's been a long time since I felt... light... about anything." Awww.
Featured in the trailer? No, thank goodness.

4) Samson discusses Raymond Carver.

After Betty goes to bed, Bruce and Samson have a man-to-man talk, and Samson brings up a Raymond Carver short story he read once, which has important literary lessons that Samson's not quite clear on. And then Samson delivers a giant speech:

I’ll confess something to you if you’ll clear up some things for me...First, I confess, as a man...as Betty’s lover... that I have always hoped you were dead. Not because I didn’t like you but because I love Betty and I’ve known that unless you were really gone, or she believed you were, that there would always be three of us in this relationship. I’ve dreaded the thought of you walking through the door. But now that you’re here... I have to admit that I’m very happy about it. Because I’m also a psychiatrist. And I’m very committed to putting light into dark corners, so to speak, and I’m very good at finding my way into the places people hide their secrets. I do it primarily because I think it helps them but also frankly because I’m interested in what
people have to hide. Betty has a very dark corner that I have never found my way into, despite considerable, careful effort. And the only thing I know about her dark place is that you are in it. And I’m wondering if you’ll be honest enough to tell me: why are you something that she won’t talk about?

And then Bruce says this thing about how there are "aspects of my personality that I can't control." And he says he'd rather die than hurt Betty again.
Featured in the trailer? Yes.

5) Betty and Bruce discuss scientific ethics.

It's pretty brief, but Betty and Bruce have a whole discussion about what they thought they were doing when they created the Hulk, which I don't remember from the theatrical release. Bruce says General Ross may be the only one who was honest about what they were really doing. And humans evolved over millions of years, and maybe it was a mistake to try and tinker with human biology overnight.
Featured in the trailer? No. And at this point, it's probably been an hour since we last saw the Hulk.

6) If I could Hulk with the animals...

In Sam Sterns' lab, after they do the treatment that is supposed to cure Bruce of being the Hulk, Sterns reveals he's been doing experiments with Bruce's blood sample. But instead of just seeing vials of blood like in the theatrical release (as far as I remember), we actually see tons of rhesus monkeys and rats, including "Hulked-out versions." I'm pretty sure we didn't see this in the final movie, probably because nobody wanted to remind viewers of the Hulk-poodles from the first movie.
Featured in the trailer? No.

7) Bruce takes charge.

There's a lot more of Bruce in the helicopter, when he's a prisoner of the army and the Abomination is starting to trash New York. Bruce pushes his way to the front to look at the monitors, and a soldier tries to stop him. Bruce dares the soldier to try and shoot him. And then Ross and Bruce argue over what to do about the Abomination. Bruce says the only way to stop the Abomination is to unleash the Hulk. And Bruce explains why he thinks being tossed out of a helicopter will jumpstart his transformation: he tried to kill himself before (in the Arctic) and the Hulk wouldn't let him. Ross, Bruce and Betty argue:

ROSS
Forget it. If I put you down there, you won’t fight, you’ll run.
BANNER
We made that thing, you and I!! We’ve got to try something! I think you were right, it’s still me. I heard you on the table calling to me and I held on...
BETTY
You think you can control it?
BANNER
No but maybe I can aim it.
ROSS
What if you just double my problem?
BANNER
Have you got a better idea?

Featured in the trailer? Yes.

8) Harlem comic relief:

After Bruce gets dropped into Harlem and becomes the Hulk, a "Harlem loudmouth" sees the Abomination and reacts:

LOUDMOUTH
...tired of this shit! Show me some motherfuckin’ fifteen foot monster buggin’ out in the WHITE man’s neighborhood, somebody’d be...

He turns and sees HULK...stops cold...Looks back at Abomination...

LOUDMOUTH (CONT’D)
Oh, I see...it’s a family thing. I’m gonna let you all work this out.

Featured in the trailer? What do you think?

10) Betty dumps Samson:

After the giant rumble, Betty figures out that her boyfriend Samson is the one who let the Army know that Brucey was crashing at their house on campus, and she kicks his ass to the curb. He says he was frightened and he made a mistake, and she says she's not coming home. For a while, anyway.
Featured in the trailer? No.

Other differences: Instead of Stan Lee drinking the Gamma-laced guarana drink, it's a young mom. Instead, Stan Lee is an old fisherman who takes Bruce and Betty into New York on his boat.

We see more of the tough Major Cabot, a woman soldier who got a purple heart in Iraq, on the team that tries to capture Banner in Brazil. (She gets a great line later, when they confront the Hulk on campus: "They should not put this in the recruitment video.") Cabot also lets Ross and the others know that the Abomination is Blonsky, something they never seem to find out in the movie.

And we learn a bit more about General Ross' backstory: he had an accident in a "black box" R&D that injured his arm, and now he's stuck running a desk. Ross is way more of a bastard in some of the cut lines, including one after the soldiers have captured Bruce, and he says keeping his daughter close to Bruce is the best insurance against Bruce Hulking out, since Bruce knows he'd hurt Betty if he did. Also, there are hints that Ross proposed an unethical cover-up to Bruce after his first Hulk-out injured Betty. [Thanks To The Ugly]

According to the Reuters piece,

After four weekends, the Louis Leterrier-directed "The Incredible Hulk" has earned $125 million, the same as what "Hulk" had pulled in at the same time in its run. "Hulk" finished with $132 million, and its successor is unlikely to do much better... Despite the similarity of the Hulk films' theatrical runs, industryites suggest the lighter tone of the second film makes it more the vehicle to generate sequels, and some suggest the remake will prove a more lucrative DVD title than the Eric Bana-starring original. On the other hand, production costs and marketing expenses were steeper the second time around, totaling more than $200 million. The first film cost about $150 million to make.

More expensive but not more successful? Is there anything that could save Bruce Banner's franchise potential?

"Hollywood is always about perception," said David Davis, managing partner and entertainment analyst at Arpeggio Partners in Los Angeles. "The first Hulk (movie) had such high expectations after the NBC-Universal merger and was supposed to be critical-favorite Ang Lee's breakout commercial blockbuster.

"Then with the new Hulk film, Marvel was able to underplay the importance of the success after the great success of 'Iron Man' this summer," Davis said. "So the new one overdelivered, relative to its underpromise."

On that logic, expect to hear that The Incredible Hulk 2: This One's A Stinker, It Won't Even Make A Dime announced by Marvel any day now.

Latest "Hulk" may not spawn a sequel [Reuters]

When director Louis Leterrier is introduced, he starts off by saying he's just come in from working on the movie's score, and that composer Craig Armstrong's work is "Star Wars good." This is perhaps not the best way to begin: a low hiss and some boos from the audience. It's probably smarter to tread softly with the Star Wars with this room.

Leterrier makes amends: he's going to show us a lot. There's going to be rough stuff, mixed in with good-looking stuff.

So what's essentially different, this time around? What does this particular take on The Incredible Hulk have? Answer: a kickass villain.

Clip: Zoom-in on the bearded face of Tim Roth. [Cheers!] William Hurt's Gen. Thunderbolt Ross talks to him about a supersoldier program from the fifties, and then we see Ross surreptitiously taking some formula out of deep-freeze. Next, a veritable needle-torture porn: Many. Scary. Long. Needles. Roth's character, Emil Blonsky, has seemingly volunteered to try out the formula. He's told that two go into his neck — and that the one in his back will really hurt. Blonsky is strapped to a a gurney that flips over, and we get to see both his face AND an even bigger needle going in to his back. But you can't cringe, because a sudden zoom-in on Blonsky has him opening his eyes in a jolt of realization, and you just know something crazy's about to happen —

The screen goes black, the lights come on, and Tim Roth takes the stage to enthusiastic applause. He says that the movie is in pursuit of what the Hulk is, and that in the clip Blonsky has had "his first injection, many to go" and that the film is "dark, twisted and fun."

The panel, comprised of Leterrier, Roth, and producers Gale Anne Hurd and Kevin Feige, were surprisingly forthcoming with information. Why choose Blonksy's alter ego, The Abomination, as the movie's villain? "We needed a big-ass fight. The Abomination is as big as they come." Such a formidable opponent turns the Hulk into the underdog, with many square-offs and many fights. There will be both Hulk vs. the army, and Hulk vs. the Enemy. There were no radioactive dogs in sight.

Leterrier says that he's worked hard to incorporate tons of images and panels from the Hulk comic books into the film. And he's about to show us a fight, though it's unmixed and with slightly rough visual effects.

The room goes dark again. Cheers! We see Ed Norton as Bruce Banner being chased by a ton of army guys in a gothic building setting. He ends up on this sort of enclosed glass bridge, with the army in full-on operation subdue mode. Liv Tyler's character, Betty Ross, is attempting to get to him and is clearly freaked out by the proceedings. When she tries to run towards the action, she's grabbed by some soldiers, and there's a great moment where Betty impatiently elbows and knocks down her restrainer. The army attacks with a ton of firepower and traps Banner on the bridge. They fire a canister of gas in after him and as it's going off, there's a ton of tension between him and the hungrily watching Gen. Ross and Blonsky, and between Banner and Betty Ross, who's panicky and obviously hadn't known what her guy is like when he's angry.

Needless to say, Banner transforms into The Hulk, and it is awesome, though some of the effects were unfinished. There's an insane chase with The Hulk busting loose with the army in full pursuit and firing endless rounds into him. The Hulk handily overturns a tank, to my internal cheer. When Roth's Blonsky decides to join the action, The Hulk uses two ripped sides of a car as a wicked bullet-shield. "Is that all you've got?" Blonsky taunts. The Hulk rears back, delivers a straight kick to Blonsky's chest, and he goes flying — into the dark.

The lights are back on again. Goddammit. Of the ridiculously cool action sequence we'd just seen, producer Hurd declares, "We promised Hulk smash, you'll get Hulk smash!"

Question and answer time! The fans line up. Of course, the first question off the bat is for Leterrier and is about what it was like to work with Ed Norton. Here, for the first time, there's a stumble: Leterrier is very amiable and has been smooth and forthright until now, but my notes read "awkward awkward says he's amazing awkward says he's very skilled tries to change subject awkward." Leterrier manages, at least, to laud Norton's talent and contributions while maintaining a good distance. He wraps up with "it was great, um, yeah, it was great."

Roth is asked if he had any motivation when playing Blonksy. He doesn't quite answer, but says of his character: "He's having fun. He's a combat man, not a desk man." But he's aging and needs to be physically enhanced.

The panel is asked about rumors that we could be seeing Nick Fury or Tony Stark in The Incredible Hulk. The question is neatly skirted by saying that some rumors are true, some are not, and we'll find out soon enough.

Another question about the off-screen drama that has plagued the film. What about those editing disputes we heard about? The producer fields that one, saying vaguely that Norton showed up to the editing sessions, and is 100% behind the film.

Does Hulk talk? What would you like him to say, they reply, then immediately joke, "Oh, Hulk smash? We should put that in."

Leterrier lets slip that the end of the movie features a fight in New York City — with attendant helicopters! He also mentions that he's read "many comments" on the internet about the film and says that he tries to take the fans' concerns into consideration.

The next questioner states that though we know the movie tries to be faithful to the comics, is it faithful at all to the live-action TV Hulk? Leterrier starts talking about how his first exposure to the superhero was via the TV show, once it was imported to France — that he grew up watching Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. Then — whaa? Was the question a plant? Because Lou Ferrigno is called on from the wings! The crowd goes wild. Ferrigno is still a naturally hulking, massive figure, especially sitting next to Tim Roth. He's supposed to have "a real funny part" in the movie, taking the normal cameo to another level. When he demonstrates his take on the Hulk voice (Ferrigno has a slight speech impediment and the voice for any Hulk dialogue on TV was dubbed), Leterrier offers that he has to do the movie's voice now, and is he free next week? Does this mean we'll have that most essential bit of Hulkish dialogue?

Trailer world exclusive! We are all completely freaking out at this point after the build-up. We hear that Banner is a fugitive for stealing state secrets, and see him as a lonesome loner in lots of gorgeous foreign scenic shots. He looks sort of like a bearded hippie on the lam. The army is after him. There is a crazily sweet-looking rooftop chase. The Abomination looks freaky as all hell. There is a kiss with Betty Ross in the rain. The tagline flashes: "Our only hope is...Something incredible." There's a flash of a sexy sex scene! Bruce Banner in boxer briefs in bed with probably Betty Ross! There are fights and explosions and gun battles and the Hulk brings down a helicopter!

The trailer kicks a ridiculous amount of ass, but we've been told to stick around for a minute afterwards for some important clarification. We all do, of course, and then..

William Hurt as Gen. Ross is in a bar and he is talking to HOLY CRAP IT'S IRON MAN! Pandemonium. The crowd around me shrieks. I do, too. Actor Robert Downey Jr.'s deadpan stare works well for Tony Stark. He says to Ross, droll, "I hear you have an unusual problem?" General Ross: "You should talk." I think I actually made the sound "squee."

Behind-the-scenes infighting notwithstanding, it seems like The Incredible Hulk film will, at the very least, provide for some spectacular action sequences, and with such a talented cast attached, there's bound to be tongue-in-cheek humor and references for the faithful.

Going in with lowered expectations, I left dying to see the movie. If everyone involved is happy with the results, and if they believe in the film as much as they claim to, then Hulk's PR people need to get a new buzz going. It looks like The Incredible Hulk deserves the same amount of attention as Iron Man, not just a visit from him.

A new article in the New York Times, casting doubt on the green powerhouse's prospects, also drops a couple bits of info: the Hulk will talk in the new movie, unlike the TV show or Ang Lee film. And if Norton disagrees with Marvel's final cut of the film, he may refuse to cooperate with publicity efforts. In separate news, a fight coordinator says filming of the Justice League movie has been pushed back to the end of the year due to funding issues. [New York Times, thanks to Christopher]

Traditional "anonymous insiders" are telling rumormongers that Norton, who rewrote the script for the planned summer blockbuster in addition to playing the lead role, is currently clashing with not only the director of the movie, but also production company and Hulk owner Marvel Comics over the way that the movie is shaping up:

Says one insider, "There's a lot of posturing going on between Edward's camp and Marvel over how you edit the final version." Sources also tell me that, starting last night and continuing at least throughout today, the actor will be holed up with Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel, Marvel Studios president of production Kevin Feige, and director Louis Leterrier to try to "reach an amicable resolution" to this $150+ million film feud.

As long as we still get our cameos from Sam Jackson's Nick Fury and Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark, we'll happily watch no matter whose vision is on the screen. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

[Empire Online via Ain't It Cool and Slashfilm]

Yup, Sam Jackson will be cameoing as one-eyed S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury. Crossovers like this happen in comic books all the time, but this mega-movie scene-swapping is the first on a scale this massive, and putting Jackson into the mix as Fury is just icing on the cake. This is sure to cause a fangasm among comics readers, and it sounds like the perfect way to tie these two properties together. All this ensemble stuff also makes it sound like Marvel might be ramping up to compete with the DC'sJustice League movie by responding with their own big-screen version ofThe Avengers.

Want To Hear A Really Groovy Marvel Rumor? [Ain't It Cool News]