The Incredible Hulk: The Truth About Edward Norton vs. Marvel
Edward Norton turned down the project when he was first approached but Marvel insisted that he meet with director Louis Leterrier, and Norton relented. At the meeting Norton offered his version of The Hulk story, and Marvel agreed to hire a screenwriter to work with him on a rewrite of Zak Penn’s draft. But no screenwriter was ever hired and Norton did a substantial page-one rewrite by himself. Anne Thompson explains: “With about two months to go before the movie started filming, Norton did a page one rewrite–knowing that he couldn’t do anything radical, because sets were being built, locations found, etc. The entire Brazil sequence was already story-boarded.” Norton added a lot of dialogue and character motivation, and Marvel agreed to shoot Norton’s draft of the screenplay.
After production was completed, Leterrier put together “an assembly” of the film, which basically included everything that was shot. The director explained to Collider: “It’s called a suicide run because it’s absolutely horrible. You want to commit suicide after you see it.”
Marvel decided they wanted make a shorter, more action-packed cut of the film, discarding a lot of the character development pieces that Norton had brought to the screenplay.
- from /Film