The Incredible Hulk’s Edward Norton Wanted His Hulk Movies To Be Like Christopher Nolan’s Batman Films

So, remember when we all got to watch Marvel Studios’ The Incredible Hulk which starred Edward Norton and Bruce Wayne and told the story of how he became that big green bruiser known as The Incredible Hulk?

Well, the film wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t terrible either, and it was pretty interesting to see Norton in a superhero movie.

However, that would be the last time we got to see him play Bruce Banner as he was later replaced by his good buddy, Mark Ruffalo in the first Avengers movie.

Anyway, Norton’s been chatting about his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and he revealed that his original vision for the Hulk wasn’t what we ended up getting.

Sounds like Norton had a specific vision for The Incredible Hulk

Edward Norton as Hulk in The Incredible Hulk – Credit: Marvel Studios

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He actually told Total Film in a recent interview with the film magazine that Marvel ‘neutered’ his initial vision.

Here’s what Norton had to say on the matter in full:

The Hulk was… I felt sad that what [director] Louis [Leterrier] and I set out to do, in terms of taking more of a Chris Nolan approach to making something that was a little more dark and serious, they ended up sort of neutering.

I wanted to make a big CGI movie and learn and see stuff. I grew up on the Hulk, I loved it. And actually people really liked the movie. You know, kids love the movie. It’s another one of those things: the amount of noise that people whip up around it. It’s so silly. I couldn’t be more happy to have been part of that whole tradition.

Norton then went on to add that he wanted his Hulk movie to be more like the Nolan Batman films.

This is what he had to say about his Nolan-esc vision for The Incredible Hulk:

The script I wrote for them had a two-part almost Batman [Begins]/Dark Knight kind of vision.

When it was like, ‘OK, that’s not what you guys are into doing?’ To me, it just becomes a pure thing of time and life. You can’t do everything, and I wouldn’t have made Birdman and Grand Budapest, and I definitely wouldn’t have made [Motherless Brooklyn] if that [franchise] was filling up my time. It’s silly to manufacture negativity when it isn’t there. You know, I loved being a part of it, and I think [Marvel] achieved everything they wanted to achieve. So God bless.

Norton was then asked whether he’d ever considered returning to the MCU, and he revealed that he wouldn’t say no to a comeback, and he already has an idea of the type of character he’d like to play:

Maybe as a baddie? Maybe I’ll write my own, I don’t know, I’m open to everything. I mean, I did Ask the StoryBots on Netflix.

What do you make of this? Would you have liked to have seen Norton’s Batman-esc version of The Incredible Hulk? Let us know in the comments below.

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