EDITORIAL: Highflyer Presents, "The Enemies Of Marvel Studios"

History:  Iron Man 2 served as a great disappointment to many fans, especially when you consider its predecessor  'Iron Man'. While the most common complaint of the movie was the uninspired story and felt like a giant commercial for The Avengers, one glaring weak point in the film was it's villain. Many consider Whiplash to be the weakest villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He never felt like a real character and came off as one-dimensional. One can't help but wonder, with a great character like Loki, why weren't Marvel able to do the same with Whiplash?

Rourke had the following to say about the matter,  “When I did Ivan Vanko in Iron Man, I fought… You know, I explained to Justin Theroux, to the writer, and to Jon Favreau, that I wanted to bring some other layers and colors to the character, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging bad guy. And they allowed me to do that. Unfortunately, the people at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up the floor.” 

I think most of us can agree that something was definitely wrong with the overall making of Iron Man 2 and Mickey's character was certainly one of them. Whether it was due to time constraints or money budgets I believe Marvel should have found a way to incorporate layers to the character since we now know that Iron Man 2 suffered for it. Marvel Studios failed on this one.

History: The feud between Edward Norton and Marvel Studios is probably the most infamous one out there at the moment. To this day, there has never been a 100% clear picture as to what happened. When news broke out that Norton would not be returning to the role and would not star in The Avengers, I was very disappointed. Not only because Edward Norton is one of my favorite actors out there or the fact that I thought and still do think he did a great job as Bruce Banner (He is my favorite Bruce Banner) but I honestly felt that the MCU had lost it's magic and the illusion of an actual shared universe had been broken. This wasn't a minor recasting either. Had it been Ross, I might have let thats slide but they changed the main character. I assure you, I have nothing against Mark Ruffalo and I think he did a fine job. In fact, had it been the other way round and Mark Ruffalo was the original Bruce Banner and replaced with Norton, I would have been equally disappointed due to the lack of consistency.
Kevin Feige's basic response to the recasting can be summed up in 'Norton wasn't a team player' and that 'he was too hard to work with.' And that is the explanation many fans have seemed to roll with. Whenever the Norton situation is brought up all I hear is 'Norton had a huge ego' or 'Norton was a pain' or 'Norton was greedy' and for a while I had accepted that notion. But there were a few revelations that changed my mind.

• Initially, Norton didn't want to star in The Incredible Hulk but when he met up with Louis Letterrier, he liked their vision and was promised some control over the script.

• Despite, doing a lot of work on the script, Norton did not get writer's credit.

• A lot of (important) character development was cut out of the movie.

• Louis Letterrier's statement that most of the difficulties were played up by the media.

Now before you claim I'm being biased you have to try and put yourself in shoes of both parties. The best anology I can give is imagine J.K Rowling gave you a chance to write a the last Harry Potter novel. You put all that hard work and Blueberry comes in and takes all the depth and darkness to make it more family friendly so your book ends up looking like Percy Jackson. Fortunatey, even in it's cut down form, The Incredible Hulk is still a good film. It is just a little disheartening of what could have been had the scenes been left in.
Whatever the case, there seems like there isn't any bad blood between Norton and Marvel Studios. Despite, Feige's statement giving off a 'F*ck you vibe, no harsh remark is made by Norton.Unlike Mickey Rourke, Norton's thoughts on the matter have all seemed to be respectful and professional; saying 'That the hulk is bigger than all of us. That's why we love him, right?' I have to go with Norton on this one guys. 
Fortunately, the role is in the safe hands of Mark Ruffalo (why do people make it sound like hulk was the first role he did a good job in?) and everyone has moved on. Unlike some people...

Marvel Studio Movie	Iron Man (2008)
Role/Character	James Rhodes
Current Relationship With Marvel	Strained

History: The recasting of Edward Norton isn't the only recasting that has taken place in the MCU. In the 2010 film Iron Man 2,  Terrance Howard was replaced with Don Cheadle as James Rhodes (War Machine). The only part of this move that bothers me is the lost banter. I really felt that the chemistry and banter Terrence and RDJ shared was gold. The way they displayed a 'big brother and little brother' dynamic is something I enjoyed watching. But let's put my personal feelings aside. Its pretty obvious that money played a large factor in this mess. It was reported that Terrence was paid the largest salary in the first Iron Man movie which is weird since most people would say that Downey was main star and reason for its success. However, this is also business and business can work in different ways.  It is also said the former Iron Man director Jon Favreau did not enjoy working with Howard and had to repeatedly reshoot and cut his scenes.  With these facts alone, we can see things were pretty messy. Recently, Howard had some things to say about the whole issue.

The fact that this mother*beep* isn't surving time in some federal penetentionary is a huge hot heeping pile of horse*beep*! (Sorry for the Robocop reference).
All jokes aside, you get the feeling that he feels somewhat betrayed by RDJ and has some bitterness left in him. Whether he did get betrayed or not is something I can't claim to know. Downey himself has not replied to the claims so we are all left in limbo. So while I'm leaning towards the sidez of Mickey Rourke and Edward Norton in their conflict with Marvel, I honestly don't know where I stand in the Howard vs Marvel Studios controversy.

What do you think of the controversies? Do you believe Marvel Studios have always been in the right? What side are you on? Voice below! 
And like always, its been a pleasure.