Geek News: Ed Norton Out of The Avengers
In the culmination of the latest comic book movie production soap opera, HitFix reported this weekend that Edward Norton will not return as Bruce Banner (aka the Hulk) in the upcoming Avengers film to be directed by Joss Whedon. This is despite both Norton and Whedon publicly expressing interest in Norton reprising the role he played in The Incredible Hulk. Instead the part will be filled by “an unknown”.
It would be easy to speculate that Marvel is doing this to save money. It recently was revealed that Andrew Garfield was being paid “only” $500,000 to play Spider-Man, and it is widely believed that Terence Howard was dropped from Iron Man 2 when he demanded a bigger payday. Once the story broke, Marvel released a statement that, in a nice way, basically seemed to state that Norton had been fired for other reasons.
This picture is a metaphor.
Rumors ran rampant during the filming of The Incredible Hulk that Norton clashed repeatedly with executives and crew, and that he was unhappy with the quality of the script and had his own ideas for the character. However, in a HitFix interview at SXSW, he expressed a great deal of optimism about future plans for the character. He had not yet met with Whedon at that time, but they did later, and it was reported that both were very enthusiastic and that Norton told his agent to start clearing filming dates. But no deal was ever made.
The Avengers is set for release in 2012. It will feature the culmination of an entire series of Marvel films, including Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Thor. It will star Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, and whoever gets hired as the Hulk. In the original comics, the Avengers came together because the Hulk went on a rampage, controlled by Loki, and rumor has it the Hulk may be a main threat this time as well. Loki will be putting in an appearance in the Thor film, played by Tom Huddleston, but his involvement in The Avengers is unclear.
When it replaced Terence Howard with Don Cheadle as War Machine, Marvel proved it could get away with a recasting like this. However, this is likely to be higher profile, and Marvel is treading on dangerous ground here in the comic geek community. The Avengers is a huge opportunity for Marvel to do something that hasn’t really been done before in movies, and a lot of people have been waiting for them to mess up. Hopefully this is only a speed bump.
UPDATE: In response to the statement by Marvel head Kevin Feige that read, in part, “Our decision is definitely not one based on monetary factors, but instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members…”, Norton’s agent Brian Swardstrom issued his own statement. It begins: “This offensive statement from Kevin Feige at Marvel is a purposefully misleading, inappropriate attempt to paint our client in a negative light.” Read the rest at Slashfilm.
In an interesting twist, CHUD is reporting a couple of rumors related the role. First off, that the new cast member may be brought on stage with the rest of the Avengers (including Joss Whedon, who has not yet been publicly confirmed as Director by Marvel) at a presentation at this week’s ComiCon. Also, perhaps more interestingly, the site reports that Marvel has offered the role to Joaquin Phoenix, who is a former Oscar nominee and decidedly not an unknown. Phoenix is a great actor, but he is coming off his public descent into crazy where grew a large beard and announced he was retiring from acting to become a rapper. However, it now appears that this was either a hoax or performance art (it may have been for a “documentary” directed by Casey Affleck). This is unconfirmed and even if true Phoenix could still turn down the role.
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