Thing is, we do like him when he's angry.

Incredible Hulk, Marvel Studios' second big bet of the summer (they're still scoring with Iron Man, now near $300 million) stomped to a $55.4 million opening weekend.

Although Universal Pictures execs were braced for some unpleasant comparisons with the Ang Lee Hulk of five years ago, which opened at $62.1 million, more pundits admired this iteration's healthy per screen count of $15,000-plus (on 3,505 screens) and its Cinema Score (from exit polls in which film goers rate what they've just watched) of A minus.

And though the producers and studio were kvelling over the result they got with their new, more heroic and butt-kicking Hulk, doubt remained. The previous Hulk hit its large number only to fall by a grimly spectacular 69 percent in the second week, ending up at $132 million and, execs feared, damaging the brand.

In the wake of the strong opening, Universal marketing head Adam Fogelson's now hoping "that the same press who by and large had dismissed it going in as a ridiculous and doomed enterprise would take the result and be as appropriately impressed as I would want them to be."

As much as it's a win for Universal, which is also hoping the franchise's resurgence will spark some interest in the Hulk roller coaster ride at the Marvel Islands of Adventure in its Orlando theme park, it's really Marvel Studios which is turning a nice money-green shade.

In tandem with Iron Man, Incredible Hulk marks the first output by Marvel under its new business model, which is fueled by a $525 credit infusion (the bulk of it from Merrill Lynch, with handy guarantees against losses from Ambac Assurance). The company can green light its own choices from among the 4,700-character Marvel Comics trove at up to $165 million. Via this scheme (which included judiciously buying back the somewhat damaged rights to the Hulk), it'll finance their big bets 100 percent, and for that risk will take an appropriately juicy percentage of the gross.

"For us it feels really great," says Marvel chairman David Maisel, "Because it was a four and half year journey, and to be two for two this summer is everything we could have dreamt of, a great start for the studio and what we want to do over many years coming up."

In his first quarter call with stock analysts, Maisel-discussing Iron Man and Incredible Hulk but with an eye to future extravaganzas featuring Thor and Captain America-was unafraid to cite the kind of numbers the majors throw around when making their summer fare: "The production costs range for first films and sequels of first films in our series...would be $135 million to $165 million, and the worldwide P&A,...$100 million to $120 million. These ranges also seem to be comparable to what other major tent pole movies are experiencing."

Maisel pointed out the further upside of a hit-the massive amounts of merchandise sales generated. Marvel abandoned manufacturing their own toys a while back, in an attractive deal licensing Hasbro to do it, and an irony is that one of the last holdovers from the not especially advantageous deals they made with studios and others in the 1990's is that aforementioned Marvel attraction in Florida.

"Now that we're free agents," Maisel says. "I think in terms of merchandisable properties the best positioned are us and Disney." (In fact, in association with the government-sponsored Dubai firm Tatweer, Marvel is planning a $2 billion theme park in Dubai.)

Marketing man Fogelson, who's licking his chops over the tracking for the Angelina Jolie vehicle Wanted ("I think it marries all of those qualities that make her so fascinating to people"), opening June 27, gives Marvel credit for the Hulk rethink. "From the first moment the movie was publicly discussed, there was an open, clear acknowledgment that this was not a sequel to the first but was whole new enterprise," he said "And I think that was a critical in overcoming people's confusion and/or unhappiness with the first one."

Hulk producer Gale Anne Hurd and Fogelson are quick to dismiss the impact of leading man Ed Norton's supposed alienation. Norton himself aimed to downplay any "creative differences" in a statement to Entertainment Weekly.

Norton is presumably available to step into a frame of Iron Man II, returning the favor Robert Downey delivered by showing up late in Incredible Hulk as Tony Stark to reveal that the super heroes were putting together "a team." Add in Captain America, whose film we'll probably see in 2010, and you've got the Avengers tentpole put squarely on the front-burner.

Says Hurd, who presumably would have a stake in such a project, "I just can't imagine that there's a greater want- to- see out there than for an Avengers movie."