LOS ANGELES — Just five years after the brute with anger management issues and forgiving pants hit — and splattered against — the big screen, "The Incredible Hulk" returns to theaters today in one of Hollywood's boldest mulligans.

The movie, starring Edward Norton as the scientist belted by gamma rays, breaks Hollywood's golden rule of remakes (studio executives prefer they be called "re-imaginings"): Give audiences time to forget the first one.

Instead, it's the filmmakers who are disregarding the original. And they're wagering $150 million that audiences will follow suit.

If they're wrong, it could sink franchise hopes for the big green guy, who made for a popular 1970s television series with Bill Bixby and is behind only Spider-Man and X-Men in Marvel comic book popularity.

But translating Hulk onto a 30-foot movie screen has been tricky, even though his 9-foot, 1,500-pound body would seem a perfect fit.

"It's different than, say, 'Batman' or 'Iron Man,' " said Rob Worley of Comics2Films.com. "Those movies have human beings in costumes, which gives you a personal connection with the hero. With the Hulk, you have to turn him into a computer-generated character. That can be a fine line to walk."

Many felt Ang Lee tripped over it in 2003 with his brooding and violent take on the comic book icon. The film did $134 million domestically — not bad, but hardly the moneymaker Universal Studios had expected.

Worse, tough reviews and savage fan reaction appeared to mark the big-screen end of the emerald beast.

New "Hulk" director Louis Leterrier, who helmed the "Transporter" films, initially turned down the project out of respect for Lee.

"I was divided," he said. "I couldn't believe they wanted to reboot the franchise after just five years. And I loved (the 2003 movie) as a filmmaker. There was great art in it. But as a nerd, I absolutely didn't like it. It was slow."

Leterrier went to his home in France to reconsider and decided to send an outline of the story he wanted to tell, complete with paintings and sketches of the action sequences he felt the film needed.

"It was kind of a pre-nuptial agreement," he says. "This was my big chance, my first big American movie. I didn't want it to be the end of my career. I wanted to start with a healthy relationship."

That relationship hit a few bumps near the end of shooting. Norton and Leterrier, who worked on the script together, wanted a longer film with more dialogue. Marvel wanted to keep it leaner and more action-heavy.

The differences came to a head when Norton, Leterrier and Marvel executives sat together for a rough-cut screening.

"It was a suicide run," the director said with a laugh. "We should have gone home, collected our thoughts. Instead we had a long meeting that day. There were things I wanted that Marvel didn't, things Marvel wanted that Edward didn't. It was bad management on everyone's part."

Marvel won the argument but lost another battle. Norton opted out of several interviews (though he has had a few appearances to promote the film, including at the MTV Movie Awards).

The movie is as much of a nod to the TV show, which ran from 1978 to 1982, as it is to the comic book. Bixby is featured in a scene from "The Courtship of Eddie's Father." And Lou Ferrigno, who played the TV hulk, has a cameo.

But equally important as action and homages, said Blair Butler of G4TV, which caters to comic book and video game fans, is the Hulk's need for a formidable villain.

And that someone is Abomination. Think of him as a Hulk on steroids who got cut off in L.A. traffic. The casting of 5-foot-7 Brit Tim Roth as the monstrous villain surprised even Roth, who has made a name for himself as a Quentin Tarantino favorite.

"I mean, movie stars want to be in comic-book movies, and I'm a character actor," he said. "And a short one. But it's amazing what they can do with Lycra and (computer-generated) effects."

Indeed, that could be what determines the fate of the "Hulk." Where the 2003 film was hammered for clunky visual effects, "Hulk" redux employs a new motion-capture special effect in which actors' faces are coated with an infrared paint so that stars' faces, down to their wrinkles, show up when they turn into computer creatures.