The Incredible Hulk
On paper, 2008’s The Incredible Hulk looked like the perfect solution to Ang Lee’s Hulk. It allowed for the big green monster to smash more things and brought Edward Norton on board as Bruce Banner/Hulk. In fact, even the critics and fans agreed that this was a far-superior effort than Lee’s dud in 2003.
Despite the critical and financial success of the movie though, Norton wasn’t brought back to portray the character in The Avengers (either by his own choice, or Kevin Feige’s, depending on whom you believe) and he was swiftly replaced by Mark Ruffalo. Truth be told, Ruffalo has been the best live-action Hulk to date, so it didn’t turn out too bad for everyone involved.
Whether we’ll ever see another Hulk film, though, is another issue altogether. Both Feige and Ruffalo have stated that a standalone seems unlikely in the near future, so we may just have to get our green fix through the MCU. Due to this, The Incredible Hulk should be remembered as another superhero reboot that went nowhere.