‘Hulk’ Director Says Edward Norton Fights Marvel and William Hurt Fight

“The Incredible Hulk” director Louis Leterrier was the first guest on the new “Happy Seed Confused” spin-off series “Watchalong” and got candid about his 2008 comic book movie. The film, starring Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and the Hulk, was the second film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but its critical and commercial reception paled in comparison to “Iron Man,” which opened a month earlier. “The Incredible Hulk” grossed just $264 million worldwide, a sharp drop from “Iron Man’s” $585 million.

By now it’s well known that Marvel has scrapped all of their follow-up plans to continue Norton as the Hulk. He was later replaced by Mark Ruffalo. Norton clashed with Marvel during the film’s production, with Leterrier stating that the film’s tone was perhaps the biggest point of contention.

“All the way through, everyone was in lockstep. It was just tense at the end,” the director recalled. “In the end, it was a lot of tension about the tone and the level of humor. Even though Edward is very funny, all his friends are comedians and he’s a very funny guy, he was very right in defending the seriousness of the film. You have to remember, in the mid-2010s… ‘The Dark Knight’ had such an impact on superhero movies.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” will open a month after “The Incredible Hulk” and will revolutionize the superhero film with its groundbreaking approach to the genre. It seems that Norton wanted to make “The Incredible Hulk” feel more like a serious Nolan superhero movie than a traditional Marvel movie, with its lighter mix of drama and comedy.

Norton’s fight over the film’s tone wasn’t the only tension. Leterrier recalled an on-set confrontation with William Hurt, who played Thaddeus Ross.

“William Hurt didn’t want the mustache to work with him. The size of the mustache was a debate,” Leterrier said. “But sometimes he and I clashed. You’ve got two types of actors. You’ve got your partners, your best friends that you get to hang out with all day, and then the guys who like to have these arguments. They feed it. That’s how it worked.”

“One day he was yelling at me, ‘You don’t know anything about actors!'” the director continued. “Too bad for him he was in the giant helicopter at the end and I was in control. He was like, ‘You have to find the button for the nuclear plant…’ I took the joystick and shook it and he Fell down and looked at me and was like, ‘I like you!’ That was it. He just wanted to have a little fight.”

Hurt has since died, but Thaddeus Ross is returning to the MCU in “Captain America: Brave New World” and will be played by Harrison Ford. Watch Leterrier’s full discussion on the first episode of “Watchalong” in the video below.