Marvel found a new vessel for the superhero Hulk in Oscar-nominated actor Edward Norton. But one of the reasons Norton decided to hop on board the feature was due to a surreal experience with another film.
‘Lord of the Rings’ convinced Edward Norton to do ‘The Incredible Hulk’
Norton picked up where 2003 Hulk actor Eric Bana left off to become the superhero for the 2008 reboot. But he wasn’t completely on board with the project. Norton once shared that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies helped persuade him that the movies could be done.
“Yeah, I remember when I heard they were making The Lord Of The Rings, I was like, ‘God, if they cheese those out I’m going to be so disappointed.” And it was so terrific to see… those films were inspiring to me, in terms of deciding to take The Incredible Hulk on,” Norton once told Total Film.
Still, it took a bit more convincing before Norton decided to fully commit himself to the movie.
“I actually said no to it a couple of times and it was only over a few conversations with Louis and with the Marvel guys – and realising they were in a frame of mind where they were ready to sort of wipe the slate and genuinely start from scratch – it was only then I really started to trust they were at the stage of not just looking for an actor, but really looking for an author in a way – and a vision for it,” he said.
Edward Norton would only do ‘The Incredible Hulk’ if he could rewrite the script
The Incredible Hulk wasn’t the only superhero role that Norton had been offered. But it was because of how many superhero scripts he read that he was reluctant to do Hulk. Norton felt he noticed a pattern in superhero stories that completely put him off the sub-genre.
“Over the years I’ve had people come at me with comic-book franchise films or things like that and I felt they were just woefully under-realised as scripts,” Norton said. “You always hear a lot of assurances and protestations about what’s going to make them great, but my better instincts have always prevailed and said, ‘I don’t really see that happening… and I don’t have the time to be the one to do it.’”
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But fortunately, Hulk came at a moment when Norton was interested in the genre. However, Norton being a part of the film was dependent on how much involvement he had with its script.
“To be honest that was the only way I was going to do it,” he said.
Edward Norton was skeptical about his Hulk joining ‘The Avengers’
Because of creative differences, Norton left his Hulk role, which would later end up in the hands of Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo would portray the character for Marvel’s The Avengers film and beyond. Meanwhile, Norton had his own ideas for his Hulk films that seemed to clash with Marvel’s own strategy.
“To me the whole thing was to envision it in multiple parts. We left a lot out on purpose. It’s definitely intended as a chapter one. You know, part of the problem with these films in general is they seem to feel the obligation to tell the origin story in a linear fashion, to deal with it first and then go on into the adventure,” he said.
Marvel’s plan with Avengers seemed to deviate from Norton’s vision. Before Norton parted ways with the character, he wasn’t sure if teaming his Hulk with The Avengers would work.
“It’s one of those things that I don’t… It has so much to do with big agendas at big companies that it’s not where I put a whole lot of my thought time. I think that if they want to do The Avengers, they kind of have to roll out a bunch of their other characters first. There’s Thor, Captain America, and all those. I think that that might be downstream a little bit,” Norton once told AV Club.
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