Over the years, David S. Goyer has helped bring Man of Steel, Blade, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and many other superhero stories to the big screen. And on the small screen, he's created Constantin, Krypton, and Netflix's Sandman. But one character he'd still love a crack at is the Jade Giant.
"There are things I’ve written that never made it to screen," Goyer told The Hollywood Reporter about which superhero story he'd still love to tell. "I did an early draft of Doctor Strange about 18 years ago. I would love to write The Hulk — he was my favorite character as a kid."
"I love the Jekyll and Hyde aspects that [comic creators] Peter David and Bruce Jones have done," Goyer continued. "The current run right now, The Immortal Hulk, I think is fantastic. I think it’d be better on TV. I like leaning into the psychological horror and Hulk’s rage as an expression of Banner, his suppressed id."
For Goyer, the most important aspect of adapting a comic to the screen is making sure it adheres to the source material. He believes in it so much that he convinced Warner Bros. to kill the Sandman movie he was working on because it was veering so far away from the comics.
"Comics beta test all these ideas. When you have characters that have been around for 30, 40, 50 or 60 years, and you’ve seen certain storylines bubble to the top again and again — that should tell you something," Goyer said. "I call it Story Darwinism. Those are ideas or themes that are sticky, that are consistent because, for whatever reason, from decade to decade to decade, they keep working — even though some of the elements around them change. So anytime I adapt something, I always say, 'Can we identify the 10 core elements that make Superman, Superman? Or make Blade, Blade?' Before we even come up with a story, let’s just sit down and come up with 10 things we can all agree on. Then let’s make sure that we don’t break those commandments."
For now, a standalone Hulk movie seems to be off the table as Universal owns the distribution rights. But Mark Ruffalo will appear as the character on Disney+'s She-Hulk. Goyer's next project will be an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation for Apple TV+.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter