Edward Norton Tried to Get Radiohead To Score Soundtrack for The Incredible Hulk

Could the Karma Police have handled the Hulk? Many years before James Gunn used "Creep" for the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Edward Norton was trying to get Radiohead associated with the budding Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Recently sitting down with MTV's Josh Horowitz for a rewatch of The Incredible Hulk (now available to own from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), director Louis Leterrier spilled a number of juicy production secrets, including the information that Norton had hoped to get Thom Yorke & Co. involved with the comic book film that helped kickstart the MCU alongside Iron Man back in the summer of 2008.

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Edward Norton wanted Radiohead to score 2008's The Incredible Hulk

"Edward is great friends with Thom Yorke and he wanted Radiohead to do the music," Leterrier recalled. "I thought that was genius, but we know what Radiohead sounds like and I think Marvel was pushing for a little bit more of a typical Hollywood soundtrack. What we thought was the elegant in-between was to find Craig Armstrong, who had worked with Massive Attack, to create this soundtrack, which is haunting ... We recorded [the score] in a church in Seattle, we really went for something that felt [old school]. We didn't want to do beat boxes and exciting, Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum action sounds."

That wouldn't be the only time Radiohead lost out on a chance to put its musical stamp on big-budget studio tentpole. A few years after the release of Incredible Hulk, the band was hired to write and record an original song for the opening titles of Daniel Craig's penultimate James Bond film — Spectre. The track, as you probably know, was ultimately replaced by Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall," which took home an Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards. 

But don't worry, this story does have a happy ending. Norton and Yorke eventually got to team up on the former's second directorial effort, Motherless Brooklyn (an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's 1999 novel of the same name).

The events of The Incredible Hulk will come back into play with the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, with Liv Tyler (Betty Ross) and Tim Blake Nelson (Samuel Sterns/The Leader) making their grand return to the MCU after all these years. Following the death of William Hurt, Harrison Ford will step into the shoes of Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross — sometimes known as Red Hulk — who has moved up from Secretary of State to President of the United States.

Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky/Abomination, of course, already made prominent appearances in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and the She-Hulk TV series. The future of Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner remains uncertain, but it's likely his surprise son, Skaar, will become a founding member of the Young Avengers team.

The Incredible Hulk is now available to purchase from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Leterrier's most recent blockbuster for Universal — Fast X (the fifth-highest grossing movie of the year) — can be found exclusively on Peacock.