Edward Norton, who starred as the Hulk in the 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, originally pitched a dark two-part epic, not unlike The Dark Knight in tone.
Before Mark Ruffalo made the Hulk role his own, Edward Norton starred as the character in the MCU’s only Hulk solo film, The Incredible Hulk. The film isn’t remembered too fondly but it turns out Norton had a very different vision for what it could have been.
In an interview with The New York Times, Norton was asked if his style was bound to result in some friction with what Marvel wanted for the character: “Well, no. I loved the Hulk comics. I believed they were very mythic. And what Chris Nolan had done with Batman was going down a path that I aligned with: long, dark, and serious. If there was ever a thing that I thought had that in it, it was the Hulk. It’s literally the Promethean myth. I laid out a two-film thing: The origin and then the idea of Hulk as the conscious dreamer, the guy who can handle the trip. And they were like, ‘That’s what we want!’ As it turned out, that wasn’t what they wanted. But I had a great time doing it. I got on great with Kevin Feige.”
“Ultimately they weren’t going for long, dark and serious,” he continued. “But it doesn’t matter. We had positive discussions about going on with the films, and we looked at the amount of time that would’ve taken, and I wasn’t going to do that. I honestly would’ve wanted more money than they’d have wanted to pay me. But that’s not why I would’ve wanted to do another Hulk movie anyway. I went and did all the other things I wanted to do, and what Kevin Feige has done is probably one of the best executions of a business plan in the history of the entertainment industry. As a Disney shareholder, you should be on your feet for what they pulled off.”
Would you have liked to have seen a Hulk film the way Norton describes, or are you happy with how things turned out? Let us know in the comments below and on Twitter @flickeringmyth…
