Back in 2010, Marvel Studios unveiled its roster for The Avengers, with Mark Ruffalo being brought in to replace Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, a role Norton had filled in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. According to Marvel’s Kevin Feige, the decision was made to bring in an actor “who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members” and “who thrives working as part of an ensemble.” Naturally Norton wasn’t too happy about this, with his reps accusing Marvel of deliberately painting him in a bad light, and now the actor has spoken about his departure from the MCU during an interview with EW:
“My feeling was that I experimented and experienced what I wanted to. I really, really enjoyed it. And yet, I looked at the balance of time in life that one spends not only making those sorts of films but then especially putting them out, and the obligations that rightly come with that. There were just a lot of things—I wanted more diversity. I sort of chose to continue on my path of having a diversity of experiences. Maybe on some unconscious level, I didn’t want to have an association with one thing in any way degrade my effectiveness as an actor, in characters. I think you can sort of do anything once, but if you do it too many times, it can become a suit that’s hard to take off, in other peoples’ eyes. And if I had continued on with it, I wouldn’t have made Moonrise Kingdom, or Grand Budapest, or Birdman, because those all overlapped with [Avengers]. And those were more the priority for me, but I continue to be a fan and I’m really, really happy I got to do it once.”
Do you have any regrets that we didn’t get to see Norton reprising the role of Bruce Banner, or did Marvel make the right decision by bringing in Mark Ruffalo? Let us know your thoughts…
Originally published October 24, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
