Edward Norton wanted Radiohead to do the soundtrack for Marvel Studios’ The Incredible Hulk.
Speaking with Josh Horowitz on a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Louis Leterrier, who directed 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, recalled the time when Norton tried to convince Marvel Studios to let Radiohead create the soundtrack for the early MCU movie.
“Edward is great friends with Thom Yorke,” Leterrier said. “He wanted Radiohead to do the music, and that was genius. We know what Radiohead sounds like and I think Marvel was pushing for a little bit more of a typical Hollywood soundtrack. We thought — not a compromise — but what we thought the elegant in-between was to find Craig Armstrong, who had worked with Massive Attack, to create the soundtrack, which is haunting.”
While Radiohead didn’t make it into the final cut of The Incredible Hulk, the acoustic version of Creep found its way into the beginning of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which was released in May 2023.
Yorke has only done a small handful of film soundtracks throughout his lifetime, as he contributed to the song “Hearing Damage” in 2009’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon and then went on to provide the music for 2018’s Suspiria remake. Jonny Greenwood, meanwhile, scored 2007’s There Will Be Blood before he went on to earn Academy Award nominations for providing the music to 2017’s Phantom Thread and 2021’s The Power of the Dog.
What is The Incredible Hulk about?
“Scientist Bruce Banner desperately seeks a cure for the gamma radiation that contaminated his cells and turned him into The Hulk,” the official synopsis reads. “Cut off from his true love Betty Ross and forced to hide from his nemesis, Gen. Thunderbolt Ross, Banner soon comes face-to-face with a new threat: a supremely powerful enemy known as The Abomination.
Released in 2008 as the second film in the MCU, The Incredible Hulk stars Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, and Ty Burrell alongside Norton. It is currently streaming on Disney+.
