A few days back news broke that Marvel Studios had possibly made a choice not to bring The Incredible Hulk star Edward Norton back to play Bruce Banner in The Avengers. Instead, the studio decided that it would be in their better interest to go out and find an unknown actor to take on the part — a decision that most seemed to think was not the right one.

HitFix, who first broke news of Marvel’s plans, now finds themselves at the epicenter of this story’s progression as a confirmation of Norton’s omission and replacement has been given, and a response fired right back.

If reports coming out of the HitFix camp are accurate, then yes it’s true: Marvel Studios has decided not to use Edward Norton as the Hulk in their blockbuster to end all other blockbusters, The Avengers. It also sounds like it’s in Marvel’s strategy guide to replace the veteran actor will a complete unknown for the part.

For as long as the movie has been on the way, the wild card has been Norton. The actor played Bruce Banner, the man with a colossal green inner-self, in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, and it was widely thought that he and the movie were a redeeming effort for Ang Lee’s 2003 strikeout, Hulk.

Though it’s been spoken of quite often over the past few months, it’s now being reported that Jeremy Renner is in final negotiations to star as Hawkeye in Marvel’s epic upcoming merging of superhero forces in The Avengers.

Hawkeye will be joining the already-packed lineup including Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Incredible Hulk (though it remains unknown whether Edward Norton will return or if other options will be used), and lots more.

This movie should become the ultimate dream flick for comic book fanatics all over the world, so long as all of these different story arcs and characters we’ve seen built up are all brought together carefully. Naturally, there’s a growing fear that this plan has gotten too big, and everything might just crash together at the end of the road.

A while back, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was talking about who we would be seeing when The Avengers movie was released in 2012. As expected, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Nick Fury were all included, but one big name that was still up in the air was that incredible big, green Hulk (Read: Marvel Talks Future Projects; Who Will You See In “˜The Avengers’ Movie?).

In a recent interview with SFX Magazine, Feige once again spoke on the project, only this time the Hulk was part of the conversation like he had been there all along. He even confirmed that there was a possibility of Edward Norton returning for a sequel to Lous Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk, but that would be after The Avengers. There is no word on if we’ll see Norton in the actual Avengers film.

Fight Club
10th Anniversary Edition – Blu-ray
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Edward Norton, Brad Pit, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
Twentieth Century Fox
Release Date: November 17, 2009

The tail end of the 90s was branded with a profound exclamation point, dealing with existentialism, fractured identities, and mindsets that were convoluted and shifty. People asked questions such as who are we? What good are we? Are we constructed socially or does man possess the capability of reasoning? Weeding out all impurities that blockade us; insulating us from conceptualizing what and who we truly are, and trying to summon back the primitive man by exhibiting symptoms of commercialism (IKEA) and materialism (khakis), Fight Club is sending crushing blows to the entire consumerist establishment that claims they know what is best for humanity. By anesthetizing society? Or by genetically breeding humans to behave like wild consumers who negate their true passions to conform to what society wants them to be? As audacious as this all sounds Fight Club is direct and impactful in its way of conveying this message. Uncompromising in its ability to take us to uncharted territories, a raw and unforgettable experience is dished out.

This vicious, yet revolutionary, assault is not presented in a soft and snug manner. The spokesperson for this radical movement, revolutionist Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), acknowledges consumerism with arms outspread. Once within his grasp he turns it into a burden, making a materialistic individual, our narrator (Edward Norton), realize that materialism has the tendency to make the human soul rot, decay and then wither away. Not fulfilling or sustaining it as the ads claim to do.