Concept Art of Billy Crudup as Ang Lee's HULK

Many of you may not know this, but director Ang Lee originally wanted Billy Crudup to play Bruce Banner in his Hulk movie. He was attached to the project but ended up dropping out for some reason. He was later replaced by Eric Bana who actually ended up being great in the role. 

Concept artist Benton Jew did some character designs for Crudup's Hulk before he dropped out. It actually ended up looking pretty silly--then again, he never really got a chance to dive into it.

The artist also released some concept art for another Hulk movie that was being developed in 1997, before Lee came on as a director. It was being produced by Avi Arad (Spider-Man) and Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead). Joe Johnston (Captain America) was going to direct but dropped out and ended up being replaced by Hurd's husband, Jonathan Hensleigh, (who had never directed a movie before) who also made a story pitch. Are you ready for this?

Hensleigh rewrote from scratch, coming up with a brand new storyline. In August 1997 Hensleigh completed his script, featuring Bruce Banner, who prior to the accident which will turn him into The Hulk, performs experiments with gamma-irradiated insect DNA on three convicts. This transforms the convicts into "insect men" that cause havoc.

Yep, we almost had insect men! Some of the concept art you'll see shows off that crazy vision. Check out the art, and let us know if you would have liked to see Crudup play Banner and the Hulk!

I did a version of Hulk that was kind of neanderthalish. My idea here being that Hulk should be to Banner, what a kitten is to a lion.