We've wondered so many times as to why Edward Norton stepped away from the Hulk role, and ultimately the Avengers. Sure, the Hulk standalone films weren't doing that well, but the option to be in the Avengers must have been seen as a huge opportunity for Norton.
From what we've come to understand, Marvel and Edward Norton were doing well in the past, but everything broke down during the negotiations to have Norton play the Hulk in the Avengers. Apparently, Norton wanted more cash, and Marvel called him a person who is not willing to be a team player.
Things fell apart, but no one was that surprised and, ultimately, no one cared after Mark Ruffalo came on as the new Hulk.
In a new explanation, Norton claims that the reason for ditching the green suit and Avengers was because he had no intention of compromising his schedule to Marvel's production year, which could have allowed him to miss out on huge opportunities such as Moonrise Kingdom.
He also said he knew he would have burned out due to playing the same character each time in the same development. Basically, he's saying he wanted more from his career and didn't want to be known mainly for his Hulk roles at the end of his acting career.
The following is Norton's explanation on why he ditched the Hulk and, ultimately, the Avengers:
"My feeling was that I experimented and experienced what I wanted to. I really, really enjoyed it. And yet, I looked at the balance of time in life that one spends not only making those sorts of films but then especially putting them out, and the obligations that rightly come with that," said Norton.
"There were just a lot of things -- I wanted more diversity. I sort of chose to continue on my path of having a diversity of experiences. Maybe on some unconscious level, I didn't want to have an association with one thing in any way degrade my effectiveness as an actor, in characters. I think you can sort of do anything once, but if you do it too many times, it can become a suit that's hard to take off, in other peoples' eyes," he continued.
"And if I had continued on with it, I wouldn't have made Moonrise Kingdom, or Grand Budapest, or Birdman, because those all overlapped with [Avengers]. And those were more the priority for me, but I continue to be a fan and I'm really, really happy I got to do it once," Norton explained.
We have to say Norton did not make a terrible decision here. It probably wouldn't have been too hard to stay on if Marvel had paid him enough, but his career after has seriously skyrocketed.
At the moment, we can't say the same for many of the actors in the Avengers right now. Only a select few have found themselves in great films, while the others have taken part in quite a few mediocre films at best, for example, Scarlett Johansson.
