We already heard that Edward Norton and Marvel were fighting over the final cut of The Incredible Hulk, but we hadn't expected that the lesser cut would have won and that the final film would be some seventy minutes short.

It raises the question who was fighthing for what version, although this could be that the version shown as a preview to audiences is heavily cut and we'll see a fuller cinematic release, or more than likely the shorter cut won out and the DVD is set for a bag load of extras.

Whichever the answer it seems that the preview sceenings of The Incredible Hulk are shy of the promised Captain America scene in The Incredible Hulk, and that there's a full seventy minutes of footage removed from the cinematic release.

In an interview with Collider Louis Leterrier reveals that there most definitely is an easter egg of Captain America in the film although when Cinema Blend saw the film at a preview they didn't see this anywhere - of course that could mean that like Iron Man (Filmstalker review) it's been removed for the previews, or it could be that it's so quick or subtle you'll miss it...I imagine it's the former, not the latter in a film like this.

The big surprise is that there's seventy minutes of edited footage from the film, of course Leterrier does say that a lot of the footage is cut for a reason, and rather cryptically he could be suggesting that there's only fifteen minutes that were really cut from the film to give the two different cuts referenced by that Marvel vs Norton discussion. It would seem the rest has been cut for a good reason, but it's not all character and backstory that slows the film down:

"Yeah, because you shoot a lot of stuff, yeah. What’s another picture? Yeah, but that’s what great. It’s like the back story. It’s more the sequel to the Ang Lee movie...

...there’s action stuff. There’s everything. We cut everything. We give you the nice haircut like yours."

Leterrier does go on to discuss what that argument was really all about and he does say it was blown out of all proportion. He says that Edward Norton saw the first cut and was just vocal about the differences, being something he was passionate about he spoke out about how it differed from what he wanted, but he was fine with it afterwards and they continued to cut it differently for the final release. However it was too late then and the media blew it out of proportion.

You know I can understand that, especially if they had removed seventy minutes of character, backstory and action from the film. One good thing though is that all of it is going back onto the DVD and/or Blu-ray release. Oh, and that's a heads up to make sure that if you do buy it you don't get double dipped - make sure that additional footage is on there before buying it.

Still though, seventy minutes cut from the film? There's a suggestion that some of this is backstory linking the first film to this one as well as character development, and you could see why perhaps Marvel didn't like that - they didn't like that first film so much so perhaps this was making sure the ties were well broken.