“The Incredible Hulk,” just the second entry in the MCU, was released in 2008 not long after “Iron Man.” Yet it has always been an outlier in terms of its tone and the fact that Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner rather than Mark Ruffalo. The story begins with Bruce’s transformation into the Hulk, after exposure to gamma radiation as part of a super soldier program that General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) leads. The movie then jumps ahead years later, with Bruce hiding in Brazil to evade Ross and the U.S. military.
While “The Incredible Hulk” is a darker film compared to the rest of the MCU, the writers wanted to push this even further during the early stages of development. In the book “The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe” (via Screenrant), Marvel Studios VP of Production and Development Stephen Broussard details an alternative opening for the movie that saw Bruce trying to end his own life in the Arctic.
Suicide is a hard topic to cover in a sensitive manner and having an important hero attempt to shoot himself right at the start of a film may have been too much for Marvel executives trying to establish a new franchise. The deleted scene is briefly alluded to in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” with Banner telling the rest of the Avengers about a time that “the other guy” spat the bullet out.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been a family-friendly franchise, these deleted or abandoned scenes might have pushed it into R-rated territory. Read More