Credit: Marvel StudiosKevin Feige has reportedly put his foot down and banned the actor who played the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Green Giant, the Incredible Hulk, from ever returning to the superhero franchise.
Kevin Feige’s Marvel Cinematic Universe began a decade and a half ago with Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008). A surprise success for the untested superhero property, Iron Man spawned two sequels, Iron Man 2 (2010) and Iron Man 3 (2013), and established Robert Downey Jr. as a comic book movie star.
Downey Jr. would go on to star in his own trilogy as well as a number of other MCU films like Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and the entire Avengers series, The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Alongside Downey Jr., multiple other Hollywood stars appeared in the Avengers movies, including the rest of the original six — Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk.
Most notable out of this lineup was Ruffalo’s Green Goliath, the Hulk. First appearing in Joss Whedon’s billion-dollar hit, The Avengers, Ruffalo’s journey as the iconic Marvel Comics character is still ongoing, with his most recent appearance in last year’s Disney+ show, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Hulk in the MCU
With Ruffalo such a big part of the MCU franchise, it is sometimes easy to forget that it was not Ruffalo who introduced the character to audiences back in 2008. No, Edward Norton was the actor behind Hulk’s MCU debut, appearing for the first time in director Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk (2008).
The Incredible Hulk also co-starred Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky, AKA Abomination. It remains, to this day, one of the MCU’s worst-performing and poorly-received movies, despite the popularity of the Hulk in other Marvel media.
Related: New Series Starring Black Widow and Hawkeye Announced After Disney Ends Current MCU
Following alleged creative differences, Norton’s journey as the Hulk would be short-lived, with Mark Ruffalo replacing him in the franchise moving forward. Now, new information has come to light about the relationship between Norton and Marvel, straight from Louis Leterrier himself.
While previous interviews with Norton reveal that the actor had wanted to produce a darker take on the comic book movie, much like what Christopher Nolan did with his Batman Begins trilogy, Leterrier also supplied more evidence of Norton and Marvel’s friction, namely the soundtrack for the Marvel movie.
“Frankly, it’s maybe [because of the soundtrack],” the filmmaker said on Happy Sad Confused (via Comic Book Movie). “I don’t remember if it was the teaser or the overall soundtrack, but Edward is great friends with Thom Yorke, and he wanted Radiohead to do the music, and that was genius, but we know what Radiohead sounds like, and I think Marvel was pushing for a little bit more of a typical Hollywood soundtrack and we thought a compromise, not a compromise, but the elegant in-between was to find [composer] Craig Armstrong who had worked with Massive Attack to create a soundtrack which is haunting.”
Leterrier also shared that Norton was pushing for Bruce Banner to first turn into the Hulk about 40 minutes into the movie, which was rejected because, as the director says, “You don’t wanna wait for the Hulk and look at your watch and think, ‘When is the Hulk coming?’”
Leterrier also pointed out that he was a neutral party in this situation and that he wondered whether Norton thought him to be on Marvel’s side, but he just wanted to make “the best movie possible.”
Leterrier’s comments come after it was revealed that Kevin Feige would allegedly never work with Edward Norton again, banning the actor from ever appearing in the future MCU. The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon is the second person Feige would reportedly never work with again.
As for the future of the MCU, Disney’s Marvel Studios is at a turning point as it not only grapples with the SAG-AFTRA strikes sweeping Hollywood but with a franchise that is deteriorating. The latest news reveals that Marvel is overhauling its television biz, while the future of the feature film effort is extremely unclear.
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