Edward Norton made his first and only MCU appearance as Bruce Banner in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, the second film in the franchise. He eventually quit the role soon after and was replaced by Mark Ruffalo starting with The Avengers.
For the past several years, it's been known publicly that Norton and Marvel Studios didn't have a good working relationship during the making of the film and there were conflicting reports on whether it was Norton's or the studio's decision on the actor's exit.
Now, a new tell-all report has shed some light on Norton's experience in the film, and one of the actors expressed their displeasure with his work ethic.
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Terry Notary Criticizes Edward Norton's Work in The Incredible Hulk
The newly-released book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards (via The Direct) revealed some of the behind-the-scenes details of the making of The Incredible Hulk.
The authors spoke with Terry Notary, the choreographer behind the Hulk and Abomination motion-capture scenes and also played Cull Obsidian in the last two Avengers films, regarding Norton's work in the film.
Notary criticized Norton as he alleged that the actor had little interest in putting any work for his motion-capture performance as the Hulk and it resulted in the VFX team manually rendering all of the character's facial expressions which was a challenging process.
"[Norton] wasn’t really engaged, as far as the Hulk stuff goes, unless he was transforming from himself into the Hulk. He was not very present through the whole thing," he said.
It was the opposite case for Tim Roth, who played Abomination, as Notary praised him for being committed to making sure that he'll do a great job on playing the role in motion capture.
He shared, "[Roth is] one of those quintessential actors that likes to be involved, wants to make sure that he’s going to look good and his character’s going to look good."
It sounded like there was already some tension on the set of the film even way during production. While they didn't necessarily say that the making of the movie was troubled overall, there were some apparent conflicts that affected Norton's tenure in the MCU that became short-lived.
Now, with Ruffalo on the role, it sounds like things have eventually worked out for a Hulk actor in the MCU since we haven't heard any stories like this with him ever since he took over.
The Incredible Hulk is available to stream on Disney+.
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