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  • In Birdman, Edward Norton plays a selfish, pretentious actor whom nobody wants to work

  • with because he's so difficult...which allegedly may not be too far from the truth.

  • At least Norton has a sense of humor about his reputation, but it hasn't helped his career

  • too much.

  • Here's why Edward Norton doesn't get many movie offers.

  • The Incredible Hulk

  • In 2008, Marvel Studios approached Norton to star in their Hulk reboot, but he initially

  • turned it down.

  • After meeting with director Louis Leterrier, Norton signed on, but with a ridiculous condition:

  • any suggestions he made to the screenplay had to be incorporated into filming.

  • Norton evidently did a substantial rewrite of the movie just weeks before filming started.

  • Leterrier shot as much of Norton's script as possible, alongside the original script.

  • The resulting mess was too convoluted for theaters.

  • Marvel executives hated the edit and ordered a new one with more action.

  • Norton more or less Hulked out in real life

  • "Raaaaaggghhhhh!!!"

  • ...and Marvel resented Norton's meddling so much that Norton got the boot in favor of

  • Mark Ruffalo when it came time for The Avengers.

  • Marvel took the rare step of issuing a statement about why Norton was dropped, saying they

  • wanted "an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented

  • cast members."

  • In short: they were sick of him and didn't like him when he was angry.

  • Or at all.

  • Red Dragon

  • The LA Times reported that in 2002, during the filming of the Silence of the Lambs prequel,

  • Red Dragon, Norton showed up on set with brand-new, totally unsolicited script pages that he'd

  • written for himself.

  • Director Brett Ratner and his producers didn't take kindly to Norton's demands to film the

  • scenes, and an argument ensued.

  • It's just one of many instances where Norton ignored the basic chain of command that makes

  • movie sets run smoothly.

  • So, it's easy to see how Norton was beginning to set up his career to crash and burn, even

  • back in 2002.

  • Frida

  • In the 2002 bio-pic about artist Frida Kahlo, Norton played Nelson Rockefeller, the billionaire

  • who commissioned Kahlo's husband, Diego Rivera, to paint a mural in New York's Rockefeller

  • Center.

  • Norton's then-girlfriend, Salma Hayek, had been trying to get the movie made for years.

  • Wanting to get every detail perfect, she asked Norton to conduct additional research and

  • use whatever he found to rewrite the Frida screenplay that had already been completed.

  • Norton has since taken credit for the final cut, but the Writer’s Guild refused to credit

  • him, since he violated their rules.

  • Norton trashed the WGA in a 2007 interview with The AV Club, saying,

  • "I wrote Frida.

  • I wasn't a member of the Writer's Guild, and I didn't get paid.

  • [...] I just got sort of shafted by them, quite frankly."

  • Death to Smoochy

  • Not even the costume department is safe from Norton's interference.

  • During production of the 2002 dark comedy Death to Smoochy, the film's costume designer,

  • Jane Ruhm, presented Norton with a wide variety of clothes for his character.

  • But that wasn't good enough for Norton.

  • Without anyone's knowledge, Norton commissioned Armani to design him the ultimate in hippie

  • chic: a suit made of actual hemp.

  • Ruhm later told Premiere Magazine that Norton made her deal with all the paperwork associated

  • with getting the suit made and sent to set, rather than, you know, letting her do her

  • job to begin with.

  • American History X

  • Norton was nominated for an Oscar for the 1998 drama American History X, but he didn't

  • just star in the movie: he also edited it, not that anybody had asked him to.

  • During the shoot, Norton and director Tony Kaye reportedly clashed about Norton's character

  • and dialogue, but things got really bad during the editing phase.

  • Kaye had created a tight 95-minute cut of the film, but when Norton saw it, he thought

  • that Kaye had cut too much.

  • Not wanting to upset their star, the production company relented to Norton's demand that he

  • make his own Norton-centric cut of the movie, which clocked in at well over two hours.

  • That's the version that made it to theaters, which upset Kaye, prompting him to ask the

  • Directors Guild to remove his name from the film's credits and replace it with "Humpty

  • Dumpty."

  • His request was denied, and his $200 million lawsuit against the production didn't fly,

  • either.

  • Kaye took out 40 ads in trade papers eviscerating Norton, and told a reporter the actor was

  • "a narcissistic dilettante who raped the film."

  • Jeez...

  • It goes without saying that the two haven't worked together again.

  • "Jee wizz"

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In Birdman, Edward Norton plays a selfish, pretentious actor whom nobody wants to work

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