Quite how much Edward Norton had to do with The Incredible Hulk being a bag of bums is unknown – hacked off at Marvel’s refusal to listen to him, he gathered up his blanket and flounced off in a strop right before the movie came out.

And that could be why Edward Norton doesn’t know if he’s got a future with The Incredible Hulk or not – if he’ll be in a sequel or if there’ll even be a sequel at all. Hopefully there’s a logical reason for this – like because the Marvel heads are too busy trying to track down and destroy every copy of The Incredible Hulk while personally visiting everyone who paid to see it to give them a refund and offer them a consolatory kick in the nuts.

2008 was a big summer for superhero movies, whether in The Dark Knight’s labyrinthine pitch-black plot or the freewheeling pizazz of Iron Man. But there was a third superhero movie this summer – the deformed son that the other superhero movies kept locked in the attic. The Incredible Hulk.

Conceived as a high-octane rollercoaster joyride compared to Ang Lee’s ponderous 2003 Hulk movie, The Incredible Hulk ended up taking less money than its predecessor while simultaneously giving off the vague impression that it was a direct-to-DVD spin-off directed by a toddler smashed off his face on E-numbers that had somehow wound up with a theatrical release, only not as good as we’ve just made it sound.

However, The Incredible Hulk has still managed to take close to $245 million worldwide, so a sequel looks fairly inevitable. But whether or not it’ll star Edward Norton is another matter entirely.

That’s because, back before The Incredible Hulk was released, Edward Norton threw a gigantic tantrum about the final edit and refused to take part in any promotion of the movie. Reports at the time suggested that Marvel wanted to make the movie shorter and punchier, while Norton was keen to include a 45-minute midsection where the Hulk embarked upon a contemplative rites of passage journey through post-imperial Calcutta or something.

But because of this, Edward Norton hasn’t got a bloody clue about what’s going on with any Incredible Hulk sequels, or even if he’ll star in them if they do get made, as he told MTV:

“The minds of Marvel are sometimes opaque. I won’t say [they're] obtuse, but I don’t have any idea what they want to do.”

Face it Norton. You blew your big chance. You could have kept your mouth shut and got another two guaranteed sequels out of The Incredible Hulk but, no, you had to go and get all precious about it. Now you’re going to be known as the man who was in that film about the magician with the gay voice and nothing more.

Now, Marvel, forget about Edward Norton. What you want to do is make a sequel to The Incredible Hulk, but this time hire an actor so preposterously dumb that he’ll go along with whatever cack-brained scheme you happen to spunk up, no matter how hacky and pointless it is. You want someone who’s not only mindblowingly stupid, but cheap as well. That way you can afford more explosions.

We’ve checked with Hayden Christensen’s agent. He’s free next week. Thank us later.

Folded:

• Take the personality test! (are you extraverted, introverted, insane? Find out here! Takes a while to do though – oh, and at least one of us turned up with the same Jung personality as Abraham Lincoln)

• Barry Norman Pickled Onions (yep, that’s right, the Barry Norman. They taste quite nice)

• The Long Walk To Finchley (regardless of your opinions on Margaret Thatcher, this one-off comedy/drama plays as the epitome of what BBC4 do best: light political fluff)

• Lee McQueen (seems like, for once, any old Alan has picked the right candidate; apparently he’s putting Lee to work on the London Underground somewhere)

• Hulk squish (not smash. Norton’s fine though)

Creased:

• CGI (why is it seldom as good as filmmakers think it is?)

• When those factory bods accidentally put smooth Tropicana in the juicy bits Tropicana carton (doesn’t ruin your day, but certainly gets the morning off to a rough start)

• No more The Apprentice (in 2005 it started off worse than Dragons Den and then swiftly became the only reality show worth watching. Big Brother then, everyone? Hmm? No)

• Gone Baby Gone (far and away not a bad movie, but Mr Ben Affleck needs to find his own voice and not Clint Eastwood’s if he wants to succeed as a credible director)

• Jumper on DVD (even with some mildy interesting deleted scenes, you’d still be better off eating your money rather than spending it on this)

However, let's not get too excited about The Incredible Hulk because reports are coming in that Incredible Hulk star Edward Norton and Incredible Hulk studio Marvel are clashing over the final edit, and things are getting so frosty that the movie's success might be jeopardised by the feud.

We don't know the details, but given that it's an Incredible Hulk movie, we hope the winner is the side who wants to do away with dialogue, narrative, female characters and feelings and just have two hours of the Hulk headbutting petrol tankers into fleets of exploding helicopters. And we think we pretty much speak for everyone here.

It's hard to think of a film more disappointing than Ang Lee's Hulk. Honestly, if we wanted to waste two hours watching a brainless thug look a bit sorry for himself we'd just watch one episode of Jeremy Kyle twice and be done with it. At least that way we don't have to put up with sitting through any sodding mutant poodle fights. 

So when it was announced that a new Incredible Hulk movie was being made it was hard not to get excited, especially since the director was Louis Leterrier who did Jet Li Unleashed. Finally, we thought, we'd be getting the Incredible Hulk movie we deserved – one where a massive green monster does nothing but punch down burning skyscrapers and javelin them through the eyes of giant mutant monsters.

Now The Incredible Hulk trailer is out, and it looks like our wish has come true. Take a look…

Well, OK, our wish has come half true. The first part of that trailer? With all the speaking? And the normal-sized humans? Bleurgh. Hopefully that's not indicative of the actual film.

And the truth is we don't know if it is. And nor does anyone else, because Incredible Hulk actor Edward Norton and Marvel can't agree on how The Incredible Hulk should be edited, and if the disagreement carries on much longer, it could mean that two Hulk films in a row will get flushed down the crapper. According to Deadline Hollywood Daily:

Norton and Marvel are clashing over how to cut the pic. Insiders say Norton was "promised tremendous involvement and access" after Marvel invited him into the core team to rewrite Zak Penn's script. Says one insider, "There's a lot of posturing going on between Edward's camp and Marvel over how you edit the final version." Sources also tell me that, starting last night and continuing at least throughout today, the actor will be holed up with Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel, Marvel Studios president of production Kevin Feige, and director Louis Leterrier to try to "reach an amicable resolution" to this $150+ million film feud.

Although we don't know anything about this fight apart from the fact that it allegedly exists, we're just going to go ahead and blame it on Edward Norton. He seems like an intelligent chap, and that's exactly the problem. This is an Incredible Hulk movie! Nobody's looking for intelligence! They're looking for scenes of the Hulk eating an elephant alive and then farting out the shattered bones into a crowd of people like a dirty machine gun!

Chances are if Edward Norton got his way The Incredible Hulk would be about a repressed man's search for internal peace that's echoed through his external rites of passage journey through colonial Papua New Guinea. Or, at the very least, a film that – urgh – makes sense and isn't just a collection of lowest denominator explosions.

We feel sick. Shame on you, Edward Norton. Shame!

Read more: 

Ed Norton And Marvel In 'Hulk'-ing Feud – Deadline Hollywood Daily

Now, thanks to Brad Pitt suddenly leaving State Of Play and Russell Crowe taking his place, production has been slightly delayed – and that delay has meant that Edward Norton has been forced to drop out as well. But, undeterred, the State Of Play team have laboured on and quickly signed up Ben Affleck to fill his shoes. And don't forget that State Of Play still hasn't started filming yet, so by the time it hits cinemas we can expect State Of Play's all-star line-up to include two Baldwin brothers, the girl from The Craft who wasn't Neve Campbell or the pretty one, a Chinese Highland Shrew and your Mum.

The now legitimately troubled movie adaptation of State Of Play seems to be working on some sort of confusing karmic points system at the moment. For example, first Brad Pitt left State Of Play in a fug of controversy, and he was eventually replaced with Russell Crowe, who is a much better actor, but a little bit funny-looking.

That left State Of Play – also slated to star Edward Norton and Helen Mirren – in a state of unbalance, since it was heavy on the funny-looking good actors but light on the wooden eye candy. However, Edward Norton has just stepped in to save the day because he's left State Of Play too, and been replaced with Ben Affleck. Thus, a wooden piece of eye candy has replaced the funny-looking good actor and, coupled with Crowe's funny-looking good actor replacing Pitt's wooden eye candy, State Of Play balance has been restored.

Let's just hope that Helen Mirren isn't about to leave State Of Play as well, because the way things are going she'll probably be replaced by Jessica Simpson, and that'll fuck everything up.

But back to Edward Norton. Why has he left State Of Play? Well, pleasingly it's for something a little more rational than not being allowed to make his character travel everywhere on a golden horse fully nude except for a giant Viking helmet – which is why we think Brad Pitt left. The Hollywood Reporter reports:

Russell Crowe was quickly recruited to replace Pitt in the film written by "Lions for Lambs" scribe Matthew Michael Carnahan. With Crowe on board, the film's production start date was moved from November to January. Because of the change in start date, Norton, who also is set to produce and star in the indie comedy "Leaves of Grass," found himself with a schedule conflict. So he asked Universal if he could be replaced so that he could fulfil his commitment to the Tim Blake Nelson-directed "Leaves."

That would normally heap trouble on an already-struggling State Of Play, but not this time. As we've said, Ben Affleck has quickly stepped in to fill Norton's role as a hard-ball politician caught up in a murder conspiracy. And since Ben Affleck's turn in last year's Hollywoodland won him awards, the State Of Play producers can at least be reassured that it's still in safe hands.

Plus the new State Of Play scene where the politician struts through his office counting how many women give him the glad-eye on his handheld clicker that he got free with some chavvy deodorant is going to just be wicked nang.

Read more:

'State' subs Affleck for Norton role – Hollywood Reporter