When Marvel Studios launched the MCU, it had to put up the rights to many of its Avengers as collateral to the bank. Luckily, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were successful enough to pay the loan off, though the latter was viewed as the safe bet at the time.
Ultimately, Iron Man grossed $585 million and earned widespread acclaim. The Jade Giant's big screen return, on the other hand, suffered from issues behind the scenes and received tepid reviews along with a disappointing $264 million global haul.
Talking in the MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios book, The Incredible Hulk writer Zak Penn reflected on Bruce Banner actor Edward Norton's decision to start making changes to the script, revealing just how petty those changes were (he also suggests it was done so Norton could get a WGA credit on the project).
"I had him walking east down the street wearing a blue hat and now he’s walking west down the street wearing a red hat," Penn recalls. "And I had named his downstairs neighbor Lorina, and he changed it to Malina or something."
"There was some stuff at the end that he really changed. I had a scene where, when Ross picked Banner up from the hospital earlier in the movie, he throws him out of the helicopter. It was a pretty shocking moment. They moved that to a moment when he chooses to jump into Harlem."
"So that’s a big difference: I felt like [the original version] would have been a really cool scene," the writer adds, "and I didn’t totally understand why he would jump out into Harlem, given that he could theoretically kill a lot of people."
Norton got his credit, but not the movie he wanted. In post-production, many of the changes he'd made were scrapped (The Hulk not showing up until 40 minutes into the movie, for example) and that's why he largely refused to promote the blockbuster when it rampaged into theaters.
Marvel Studios, unhappy with how he'd conducted himself, publicly fired Norton and later announced that Mark Ruffalo would take over the role in The Avengers. He's been playing the character ever since and most recently showed up in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Due to complicated distribution issues with Universal Pictures, The Hulk has yet to star in his own solo project but rumours persist that we'll see him take centre stage in a World War Hulk project somewhere down the line.
What are your thoughts on The Incredible Hulk 15 years later?