THE INCREDIBLE HULK director says William Hurt liked to argue with him on set, and Edward Norton was right about the film’s serious tone

The Incredible Hulk is one of the least favorite Marvel films since the start of the MCU. It arrived soon after Iron Manwhich represented a real shift in how viewers viewed superhero films. Iron Man it was fun, ambitious, and full of an energy that made people excited to see what would happen next. The Incredible Hulk took a more serious tone, which ultimately proved to be the right path for superhero films like The dark Knight at DC, but it wasn’t what Marvel fans were hungry for, and it didn’t work at the time.

But the director of the film, Louis Leterrierwho had previously directed the first two Conveyor films and continued to direct Now you see Meepisodes of the series Lupineand this year’s X fastdefends the tone of the film and its protagonist, Edward Nortonwho fought for it.

In a recent interview on the new Happy Sad Confused podcast spin-off series Look (via Variety), Leterrier said:

“The whole way, everyone was on pace. Eventually she became tense. Ultimately the tone and level of humor was very tense. Even though Edward is very funny, all of his friends are comedians and he is an extremely funny guy, he was right in defending the seriousness of the film. You have to remember that, in the mid-2010s, “The Dark Knight” had such an impact on superhero movies.”

Norton’s dispute over the tone of the film wasn’t the only tension going on. Leterrier recalled clashing with the actor on set William Hurtwho played Thaddeus Ross.

“William Hurt didn’t want a mustache playing him. The size of the mustache was a discussion. But sometimes he and I butted heads. You have two types of actors. You have your partners, your best friends that you have to cajole all day, and then the people who like to have these arguments. They feed on that. That’s how he worked. One day he shouted at me: “You don’t know anything about actors!” Too bad for him, in the end he was in the giant helicopter and I was in command. He said to me: ‘You have to find the button for the nuclear power plant…’. I took the joystick and shook it and it fell over, and he looked at me and said, ‘I like you!’ That’s all. He just wanted to argue a bit.”

It sounds obnoxious, but it seems right on par for William Hurt. The actor died in 2022, but the character of Thaddeus Ross will return to the MCU in Captain America: Brave New World and will be played by Harrison Ford.