Broken Hart
Entertainment Weekly, March 2, 2002
Gregory Hoblit knows the score. The director - who gave Edward Norton his break in 1996's Primal Fear - was surprised when the actor passed on the title role in Hart's War, which went to Colin Farrell. "Edward was very interested in a Tommy Hart-driven movie but not in [having] other roles elevated to be more complex... and I was," says Hoblit. War screenwriter Billy Ray (Volcano) is less diplomatic: "Bruce [Willis] became attached, and then Ed got shaky," he says. Greg deserved better. He made Ed." Norton's agent, Brian Swardstrom disagrees: "Ridiculous! Edward was never committed. It was always pending a costar and a script. As much as he wanted to work with Greg, he made a commitment...that he would never sign on before they had a finished script." Hoblit takes the squabble in stride: "I've come, in this business, to have no expectation about people's manners. It's better to get on with it." - Stephen Schaefer
Flatbroke's Note
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was that I believe that when Willis signed on to the picture, it was more than as just a costar. His production company Cheyenne Enterprises became involved with the film and his partner in the company Arnold Rifkin also became a producer on the film. And Willis' role of Col. McNamara was much more of a supporting role amongst numerous supporting roles if you read the novel. In the Variety article that reported EN's decision to drop out, Variety also reported that the process of recasting the role of Tommy Hart would be based on a list from Bruce Willis. So it might have been partly a concern of having a costar with more decision-making clout.
Also worth mentioning was that EN was reported to be up for a $8 million paycheck with Hart's War, his biggest salary up to that point (The Hollywood Reporter reported that for The Score, EN would have received $6.5 million plus 4% of the first-dollar gross). Whatever his reasoning was for not taking on the project, it was important enough to him to walk away from $8 million.
I don't know the details of the situation or the film business at all, I just know what appears in the trades, so the above is speculation on my part.
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