The people at Marvel Studios have a lot riding on this summer's Incredible Hulk. They hope it will be a successful reboot of the franchise after 2003's The Hulk disappointed fans by focusing on such boring things as story and character when it should have been focusing on the Hulk smashing things. So far, I have to hand it to Marvel: People are now talking about whether Edward Norton will do publicity for the new film, which beats what they were talking about a few months ago, which was whether the movie was going to suck. As always, it's best to shift the attention to behind-the-scenes trivia and away from the product itself.

Everyone knows that Marvel wanted to make this new film more accessible and popular than Ang Lee's version. Less talk, more smash, that was the idea. For some reason, they thought the best way to achieve this would be to bring in Edward Norton -- a supremely talented but notoriously "difficult" actor -- not just to star in the film, but to rewrite the screenplay.

Does the logic of such a move escape you? Yeah, it escapes me, too. If I wanted to make a multiplex-friendly superhero blockbuster movie, an idiosyncratic intellectual is not who I would hire. That's what Ang Lee was. Sure, they hired a director who's the polar opposite of Lee -- Louis Leterrier, director of the Transporter films -- but giving Norton control of the screenplay kind of cancels that out. All the whip-pans and quick cuts in the world can't enliven a scene if all the protagonist is doing is sitting around moping and quoting Kierkegaard.

To the surprise of no one, there were soon reports of friction between Norton and Leterrier and the studio. Norton and Leterrier (who agreed with each other, strangely enough) were pushing for a longer, more meditative cut of the movie (i.e., something just like the first one), while the studio wanted an action-packed blockbuster that was less than two hours and would convince sulking fanboys that the Hulk they knew and loved from the comic books was finally on the big screen.

Then Norton declined to do some interviews for the film, and the Internet was ablaze with rumors. Norton has disowned the movie! Norton isn't going to help promote it! Norton is a schizophrenic who started a network of underground fight clubs! (Actually, that rumor is old.) Norton finally sent a statement to Entertainment Weekly reassuring the world that he's proud of the film and wants it to succeed, even though Marvel eventually won the argument about which cut to use (i.e., not his) -- but he still didn't answer the question of whether he would do the usual rounds of interviews and appearances to help promote it.

Now the question is: Does it matter? It seems to me that an actor declining to pimp his movie on the talk-show circuit is only considered a bad sign by people who pay attention to things like that. That is to say, if he runs the Jay Leno gauntlet, fine. If he doesn't, his absence won't be noticed by most people. The average moviegoer doesn't see an ad for The Incredible Hulk and think, "Hmm, I wonder why this movie's star has not yet appeared on Letterman? He must think his own movie is a stinker. I shall therefore refuse to see it!"

If Norton doesn't participate in the film's full-court press, that might reduce its visibility. But I think Marvel and Universal (which is distributing the film) can compensate for it. The movie has other stars, you know, including Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, and William Hurt. Any one of them could be drafted to do the talk shows instead of Norton, giving the film the airtime it needs. Really, it doesn't matter who's on the couch yakking about the movie, as long as the words "Incredible Hulk" and "in theaters Friday" are being said over and over again.

Ultimately, the film's success will come down to the same things that it always comes down to: word-of-mouth and reviews. If the audiences (and, to a lesser extent, the critics) like it, it won't matter how much pre-release publicity it had. Word will spread and people will see it. If the fans don't like it well, no amount of chatter from Norton or anyone else can save it. Let's just hope the version Marvel releases truly is better than the longer, more thinky version Norton was pushing for. I do NOT want to go through all this a third time, five years from now.

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You wouldn't like Eric D. Snider when he's angry -- but honestly, he's not that great when he's happy, either. He does have a website, though.

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Now you decide: Which version of The Incredible Hulk were you pulling for?

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