The Avengers

[Ben]

Interesting...Norton obviously wants to be a part of this, and he should be if all was right with the world.

If this public feud doesn't work in his favor, though, wouldn't it be ironic if their "name actor" was...Eric Bana!?

[LotsoA113]

Well the film's as good as dead now.

[EricJ]

Yeah, and they kicked out Terence Howard, that's gonna destroy Iron Man 2!

Seriously, it was good to have a fanboy of Norton's caliber on the "new, improved" second Hulk movie, but it's just not a dealbreaker when we're talking about the group movie--I'd have seen the movie even if they were debuting the characters for the first time, let alone just reuniting the solo-project actors.
Losing Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, that might be a bit more serious, but if it hadn't been

Downey who cameoed at the end of Hulk 2, and we'd gotten a "different" Tony,

would we have stormed out of the rest of Hulk 2 in a rage?

[Dan]

Ed Norton has responded on his Facebook about the whole deal:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1 ... 5766514531

In the meantime, there's a wacky rumor that Joaquin Phoenix could fill in as Banner.

[droosan]

To be honest, I think any of the characters are 'fair game' for re-casting, whether for money or for creative reasons. In fact,

I thought the cryptic "Iron Man - YES .. Tony Stark - NO" line in Iron Man II was meant to pave the way for the possibility of a different actor portraying Iron Man in The Avengers.

Relying on a specific actor to portray a specific fictional character is rather absurd. There's been a different actor portraying Batman and Superman in nearly every other movie (over a dozen for each if you count their animated permutations), and few seem to have a problem with that.

[Dan]

There's been a different actor portraying Batman and Superman in nearly every other movie (over a dozen for each if you count their animated permutations), and few seem to have a problem with that.

I think a few can say they might have a problem or two with George Clooney having been Batman.

[Randall]

There were much bigger problems with Batman & Robin besides poor George. I thought he made a rather jaunty Batman.

[Ben]

Well that's a very mature response from Norton. Fair play.

I have to say that while they've tried to line up everything so that the actors can all play their roles in Avengers, I might have thought that an all-new team would have been the way to go, to avoid crossover story confusion for the wider, casual audiences who may not have seen all the preceding movies, plus given what Droo mentions about Iron Man 2, which didn't seem to me to weave itself into Tony Stark being part of a bigger team (or is he going to "lead" it?)...

[Dacey]

I think that the plan is for Tony to become the leader. At least that's what I think I've been hearing.

[Ben]

That doesn't surprise me, then. (Sigh) It seems that Hollywood star games are playing havoc with the property: rather than make what they should make, they're falling into the "who's the biggest star/taking the most money to appear" line, which means that this will ostensibly be "The Avengers" but will actually be "Iron Man And Some Other Marvel Heroes Who Help Him".

[Randall]

It makes sense for Tony to lead the team, though. Given that Cap will have just been thawed, I can't think of anyone else who would do it. Once Captain America has his bearings, though, he'd be taking over.

[EricJ]

In the comics, there IS a three-way lead between Nick Fury as name-only military and government-liason leader, Tony as genius tech sponsor, consultant and leader (and, it's his mansion), and Cap as field-strategy leader.
Usually resulting in conflicting ethics between Tony's modern-day cynicism and Cap's old-fashioned ideals.

They're clearly setting up Tony's having to "earn" his leadership, and set up the three-way conflict, since Downey's version would be less experienced by the time of the group movie.

[Macaluso]

To be honest, I think any of the characters are 'fair game' for re-casting, whether for money or for creative reasons. In fact,

I thought the cryptic "Iron Man - YES .. Tony Stark - NO" line in Iron Man II was meant to pave the way for the possibility of a different actor portraying Iron Man in The Avengers.

Uh what? There was nothing cryptic about that. All that meant was

that Tony Stark would simply be Iron Man when out fighting and stuff, and Tony everywhere else. There'd be no overlap. Probably make it appear to the public that he is no longer in the suit even though he really would be. It's a PR thing.

RDJ would also not give up playing Tony Stark because he LOVES the character. He LOVES that he gets to be Iron Man. And they'd be nuts to replace him anyway, becuase he IS Tony Stark. No other actor could do Tony justice like RDJ

[Dan]

Set to hidden due to size of image.

Avengers assembled at the Marvel Studios panel, pic courtesy of Deadline.com

Avengers-panel.jpg (88.04 KiB) Viewed 10191 times

From left to right:
Robert Downey Jr. - Iron Man
Clark Gregg - Agent Coulson
Scarlett Johansson - Black Widow
Chris Hemsworth - Thor
Chris Evans - Captain America
Samuel L. Jackson - Nick Fury
Jeremy Renner - Hawkeye
Mark Ruffalo - Hulk
Joss Whedon - Director
Kevin Feige - Producer

Video of the cast being introduced, courtesy of BuffyfestBlog:

[Macaluso]

The Avengers is going to rule so hard