Word came this month that Edward Norton will not reprise his role as Bruce Banner in any Hulk sequels or the upcoming Avengers movie, because of some dispute with Marvel. According to the comic book company, it’s because Norton doesn’t know how to be a team player. But his reps say Marvel pulled the rug out from under Norton during contract negotiations; rather than talk it through, the studio’s allegedly just cut him off and tried to slam Norton in the press for having a big ego and wanting too much money.

Who to believe? The truth lies somewhere in the middle. There’s a really good story from Yahoo Movies that chronicles the recent events.

But looking back, one has to question if Marvel has a master plan for its cinematic comic universe or if it’s just being a reactionary force.

• Exhibit A: Marvel replaced Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2. Personally, I loved that swap, being a Cheadle fan, but I gotta admit it was a bit jarring to see such a different actor as Lt. Col. Rhodes.
• Exhibit B: Marvel casts Chris Evans, the actor who played the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four franchise, as Captain America. Sure, the FF movie series is owned by Fox while the Captain America film rights are owned by Marvel, but do audiences know this? No. They only know that the Human Torch is now Captain America. This is the equivalent of Christian Bale being hired suddenly to play Superman.

Now Norton has been given the boot. What should we make of all this? What should I believe?

Norton’s classy response to Marvel should give us some clues.

He has been known to be super involved with his projects, which can sometimes cause friction behind the scenes (see American History X and The Incredible Hulk). But as a fan of his work, I’d like to think that it’s because he’s hyper intelligent (he’s a Yale graduate) and passionate about his craft. He’s also not just an actor; he writes and directs. So, when he comes onto a project, you’re getting more than just an acting puppet. You’re going to get a creative force who is going to try to make the best movie he knows how.

Does that rub people the wrong way? Apparently.

Regardless of who’s in the right, I think it’s lame that Norton won’t be in any Hulk sequels or the big-budget ensemble epic, The Avengers. I mean, think about what could have been: Oscar-nominated Norton as the Big Green Machine, Oscar-nominated Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Oscar-nominated Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Oscar-nominated Cheadle as Rhodes, with Evans as Cap and up-and-comer Chris Hemsworth as Thor –- all directed by comic-geek genius Joss Whedon?

That would have been effing fanboy heaven! … Now, we’ll just have to wait and see.

He’s a brilliant comic book writer/artist and one of the most celebrated creators living today. Sin City, 300, The Dark Knight Returns, Ronin, and various character-defining runs on titles such as Daredevil – all birthed from this man’s wildly imagination.

So when I heard he was helming the movie adaptation of The Spirit, I was pumped. I was really optimistic that he could bring some intelligence and style to this iconic series by the legendary Will Eisner, and with good reasons. Miller co-directed the Sin City movie with Robert Rodriquez, and Miller had complained bitterly in the past that his scripts for Robocop 2 and 3 were butchered by the studio. I was certain Miller’s cinematic version of The Spirit would be full of his trademark machismo and sophistication, after he had gone through those three movie-related experiences.

Instead, The Spirit is an absolutely soulless, steaming pile of [insert disgusting noun here], due largely in part to his mindless script and horrible directing choices. I’m sad to say it could be one of the worst movies to come out in 2008.

I just watched the DVD and it was so bad in fact that I didn’t even sit to watch it through. (And I never walk out on movies.) By the end of the first act, I got so sick of it that I actually fast-forwarded to the climatic battle between the Spirit and his archenemy, the Octopus. And not only had I predicted the outcome 30 minutes previously, but I felt like I hadn’t missed anything by not watching the middle 70-minutes worth that I had skipped over!

One of Miller’s biggest screenwriting mistakes was giving the Spirit healing powers. In the comics, the Spirit was a cop who was murdered and resurrected. Aside from his Lazarus-like reappearance, he had no superpowers — think Batman without the million-dollar gadgets. Yet, for some strange reason, Miller felt compelled to give the Spirit some Wolverine-like regeneration skills. This instantly weakens the character from a storyteller’s perspective.

Why?

If the main hero can heal despite getting a toilet dropped on his head (this actually happens in the movie, ridiculously and metaphorically enough), the audience will never feel like he’s in any danger and therefore will never really care much for what happens to him. And if the audience doesn’t care what happens to the main character, they won’t care what happens to the story because there’s no longer an emotional investment in the story … which is the exact opposite of what you want as a storyteller. It’s this very same reason why Superman will never be as interesting as Batman. If Superman is invulnerable, why should we care how Lex Luthor tries to kill him? That’s why the writers invented kryptonite.

But in The Spirit, there is no logic, let alone any kryptonite-like plot device. There are, however, many other screenwriting mistakes, but I won’t belabor the fact that Miller should have taken a different approach with the script.

As for his biggest directing mistakes … wow, there are too many to list and would fill a week’s worth of blogs. But let’s just say that emulating Rodriquez’s CGI-heavy visual style from Sin City definitely didn’t do him any favors.

Suffice to say, The Spirit sucked massive donkey balls. The sweaty, hairy kind.

I’m disappointed, Frank. I used to love your work. Now I’m just heart broken.

1. a crappy screenplay,
2. a director who doesn’t understand the source material enough to recognize that he got a crappy script handed to him.

On paper, screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods and director Gavin Hood look good together. I’m a fan of Benioff thanks to his work on Spike Lee’s 25th Hour and Hood did wonders on Tsotsi.  (I’m not as crazy about Woods, who wrote Swordfish and Hitman.) Both of them are capable of amazingly intelligent yet heart-pounding thrillers. Will they bring that same “thinking man’s” action aesthetic to the most popular Marvel Comics character and the best thing to come out of Canada since hockey and maple syrup?

As a Canadian-born comic lover, I haven’t been impressed by the trailers. They look horribly cheesy. I’m talking besides the ridiculously fake CGI- and stuntwire-aided sequences. I’m thinking about the story (as every scribe should). Let’s look at the things that irk me or raise my eyebrow:

• A teenage Cyclops makes an appearance: When did Wolverine’s origin ever have anything to do with Cyclops??
• A buttload of minor Marvel characters seem to have supporting roles, including Deadpool, Gambit, and the Blob: Why pack in a bunch of characters that should be saved for an X-Men sequel into a solo origin story? To me, too many characters always spells “warning!” Plus, in the comics, those three have little or nothing to do with Wolvie’s origin.
• Sabretooth charges at Wolvie on all fours: He is a mutant whose handle is Sabretooth; that doesn’t make him an actual four-legged feline!

Wolverine is one of my favorite comic characters. What makes him so special to me (aside from him also being Canadian) is that he’s the ultimate anti-hero, who could be 200 years old and has a mysterious, convulted past. He is just one hair-trigger away from being like the very evil-doers he stabs and slashes without remorse. He and this movie should be portrayed as extremely dark (I’m talking beyond Dark Knight dark) and as a real tragic figure who is more afraid of what’s inside of his head than the villains he has to slay.

So far the trailers don’t lead me to believe that X-Men Origins: Wolverine will do that, that the action won’t be as campy and the character development so off the mark as, say, Daredevil. 

I am hoping and praying that I’m totally wrong and that this won’t be the case.