Over the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 11-year rise to power, few of its stars have seemed more charmingly ill-at-ease with the franchise’s monolithic dominance than Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo. Maybe it’s a function of his late-addition status, having taken over the character of Bruce Banner from Edward Norton after his Incredible Hulk movie failed to make much of an impact. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s sick of getting yelled at all the time for his lack of respect for corporate superhero secrecy. Mostly, it just seems to be a function of his personality, which seems eternally self-effacing and bemused by his status as a cog in the greater Marvel Machine.
Case in point: Ruffalo’s response when asked this week about whether his Banner/Hulk/Banner-Hulk hybrid would be appearing in any more Marvel movies, despite the fact that he was one of the most high-profile survivors of this summer’s Avengers: Endgame. His fan-favorite glamour does not appear to have stopped Ruffalo from viewing this gig as one that could be lost at any time, it seems, like a Subway sandwich artist whose manager is really looking to find a place for her kid in the weekly work rotation:
It’s all up in the air. I started asking as Endgame was winding down and my contracts were up, I was like, ‘So, you know, is there a place for me here?’ And the response was, “Well, we’re going to let this sort of come to an end and then see where we are somewhere in the future.” So I just took that as a really nice way of saying probably not.
Admittedly, Marvel has been making strides, as it moves between MCU Phases 3 and 4, to expand its appeal past its record-shatteringly bankable roster of A-list stars. And Banner himself seems to have reached something like the end of his narrative arc—albeit one that played out mostly at the edges of other people’s movies—mastering his rage and transforming into a selfie-snapping destroyer of eggs, rather than buildings. Still, though: It would be weird for one of the franchise’s most popular characters to just disappear, no matter how much Ruffalo seems to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In fact, when pressed, even Ruffalo was forced to note that there’s a decent possibility he’ll pop up somewhere in Jessica Gao’s upcoming She-Hulk show. (The titular character is Banner’s cousin in the comics, and it’s his gamma-irradiated blood that forces her to transform.) Apparently not even Mark Ruffalo can “Aw, shucks” his way out of this potential bit of brand synergy, noting that, “I would not rule [a She-Hulk appearance] out at this point. And I’m supposed to have a talk with Kevin Feige in the next couple of months. So you know, who knows? That’s how it all started. So that might turn into something.” Meanwhile, we can only hope that his shifts at the Subway continue to hold out.
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I’m still a little baffled that Marvel didn’t schedule another Hulk movie after Avengers, when Ruffalo’s Hulk was received so positively. I know they’d struck out twice before with Hulk movies, and I know there’s issues with the rights being shared with Universal, but still…leaving one of their most valuable properties to take nothing but supporting roles in other films after he’s finally portrayed correctly seems less than savvy for a company as savvy as Marvel.
I think the problem is that for a Hulk film, you have to go balls in on the Hulk mythos. Hulk as a monster and Banner as a troubled soul is material for one film and even that’s been done a million times, so it’s best for his predicament to be viewed through the lens of others or by giving it to others. You need She-Hulk, you need Doc Samson, Joe Fixit, Red and Gray Hulk, Amadeus Cho… It’s a lot of ground to cover in a film, though. I hope he’s a fixture of the She-Hulk show because that could work.
That, or maybe Ed Norton has right of refusal to a ‘Hulk’ film? Seems like no one works with him twice.
I mean, Norton hasn’t been part of the MCU for a decade, so I’m not sure what’s his place in this conversation. The actor isn’t much of a factor: Ruffalo’s a brilliant one and he likely would be the least of a full Hulk film’s problems. The issue is probably 70% Universal and 30% the formula being tricky.As for Norton his departure from it, he mentioned that he was afraid it would cut into his indie and smaller budget work – and he later admitted that it was perhaps an overreaction, given that even Chris Evans was able to fuck off to Off-Broadway despite being one of the leads.He also has a reputation of a bit of a diva. He likes to take control of his character and influence the director. He tried this on Inarritu when they were doing Birdman – apparently when they were filming his introductory scene, in which his character is arguing with the director. Apparently, he didn’t immediately realize the irony.
As creatively as he was utilized in Thor and Endgame, I don’t think Hulk could have necessarily anchored his own movie. There just doesn’t seem enough for him to do in a solo movie and Hulk doesn’t exactly have a broad variety of enemies to draw on. And honestly, that’s fine. He got plenty of great material in the team movies (unlike hawkeye) and people actually loved Hulk (unlike hawkeye) so let him just stay in team movies (unlike hawkeye).
He got plenty of great material in the team movies (unlike hawkeye) and people actually loved Hulk (unlike hawkeye) so let him just stay in team movies (unlike hawkeye).Take your star!
And Mark Ruffalo seems to be perfectly happy just being a team player, which is how people also seem to like him (unlike Jeremy Renner).
You say that but if they brought in Pizza Dog, I would buy 10 tickets on opening night for a Hawk Guy movie.
A Matt Fraction Hawkeye movie would be incredible, but you’d a substantially younger and substantially more charismatic actor than Renner in the lead role.
But I do want some closure on the Leader and Abomination, they never really mentioned them again.
I recall a reference in Agents of SHIELD saying Abomination was in one of their super prisons. This was back in season 1 before all the Hydra stuff happened though, so who knows if his situation has changed. I don’t recall any updates on the Leader though. Presumably he was arrested after creating Abomination.
It’s the Universal thing. As soon as the Hulk is the star they lose a fuckton of the revenue. They know how beloved Ruffalo is, but it’s not like they’re short of massively successful films. I’m sure if the sums added up as well as the Disney Spidey deal, they’d do it.
Bingo! This is a rights issue with Universal.
The Hulk is a difficult character for film because most of the more interesting parts are introspective.. Comics are almost a perfect medium because you can add thought bubbles and have a long history to refer to.
Respectfully- They didn’t strike out twice. Ang Lee’s Hulk was never a Marvel movie. Universal owns Hulk, period. The failure of that movie, opened the door for Marvel to use Hulk, but with solid restrictions. They could only do one solo movie (Incredible Hulk), but Hulk could be a ‘team’ player. Universal’s brilliant move was to incorporate Hulk into their theme park early on, which means he’s entrenched in Universal, and ain’t goin’ nowhere. Thanks to Feige, Professor Hulk may have created a loophole. But with Disney fully in charge now, I’m not holding out much hope that they’ll invest more time and money into Professor Hulk, now that they outright own so many other characters.
I believe the rights for solo hulk movies are controlled by Universal, not marvel, and that is the biggest thing stopping them. I think the niche of what they established with the hulk stories playing out tangentially has worked well for marvel.
You’re not going to see another solo Hulk movie because they’d have to play ball with Universal to make it happen (Universal pictures holds the distribution rights to Hulk, and first say on yeah or nay for a solo movie). They were able to get around that by making him part of ensemble movies in order to use him, without having to work with Universal. They will likely give the next Hulk solo movie to either She-Hulk or, my guess is they’ll bring in Amadeus Cho’s version of Hulk. He was already name dropped in Winter Soldier.
It’s at least partially a rights issue. Disney/Marvel owns the character rights to the Hulk, so they can use him in the Avengers movies and have him pop up in Thor and Iron Man adventures. But Universal retained the solo film rights for the Hulk after the Edward Norton movie came out, so Disney would need to work out a Spider-Man style deal with Universal for a solo Hulk movie. Either they don’t want to go through the trouble of doing that, or they have tried and just can’t reach a deal.
I don’t see Universal giving Disney the green light for a film without a check with a lot of zeroes and I doubt Iger is willing to do that.
I kind of want to see the MCU version of Joe Fixit, the original version of Hulk that represents Banner’s egotistical side and who was a mob enforcer in Las Vegas.
Maybe, just like how originally Banner would vacillate between his own personality and Hulk’s, now he finds that certain outside stressors cause him to switch between the Professor Hulk and Joe Fixit personalities?
I’d love it if they could work him back into the new Thor movie.
Hulk and Ant-Man Hit the RoadHulk and Captain Marvel Hit the … Space-Road
Hulk and Doctor Strange Hit the … Cosmic-Road… these ideas just write themselves.
No they don’t! You wrote them! I saw you doing it!
I loved this team-up as a little kid, and think others would love it…
Sometimes I have to take a look and remember “Wait. This can actually happen now. The two characters have already shared a pair of movies. Why NOT GOTG 4 with Hulk?”I don’t think early comics reader me would ever have seriously believed you if you told me that this would happen.
“Jade Jaws” is pretty sweaty!
Hulk and Doctor Strange would hit the Astral road.
“Hulk and Ant-Man Hit the Road” As long as this is the opening scene:
I’d love a Defenders movie, not the TV version, but Hulk, Dr. Strange, Valkyrie and then bring in a new Patsy and Nighthawk. I know there are rights issues with Namor, but they can work around that.
no way dude. give me the jm dematteis/giffen/maguire defenders from 2005.
https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/2160/defenders_2005_1
Is their a rights issues anymore with Namor? I thought he was a Fox asset(along with the F4).Honestly a Disney+ Defenders series modeled after the 70s version of the team, with its constantly rotating roster of heroes could be fun. Would be a lot better then the Netflix Defenders.
I guess I thought F4 was Sony, not Fox. Good to hear I was wrong.
Namor rights are same as Hulk’s. They have the rights unimpeded as long as the film doesn’t have Hulk or Namor in the title. Then they’d have to deal with Universal.
It’s barely an exaggeration to say that this iteration of the MCU has made more money than any project in the history of ever. I pretty much guarantee that if he wants to and he’s happy with his current compensation level, he can keep doing Hulk cameos and supporting roles until they’re wheeling his corpse off the set.
Going by the projects that have been announced for phase four, I don’t see a spot for him unless he gets another appearance in Thor. I doubt they’re going to fire him, but they might be side-lining him for the next couple of years. They also might replace him ala Amadeus Cho.
Let’s all keep in mind that Ruffalo could be straight-up lying. There have been plenty of instances of Marvel (or, say, Star Wars) actors saying they didn’t know what was going on and it turned out they in fact did know but weren’t allowed to say anything, so they had to literally lie to the public about it.
True, but being crafty about what’s in the future for the MCU has never exactly been Ruffalo’s strong suit.
Case in point:
That always makes me laugh. He seems a bit stoned. Which might be a good way to get through the press tour.
That’s his secret. He’s ALWAYS stoned.
Sure, but there’s a major difference between “you can talk about the movie but you can’t reveal [long list of details] which constitute spoilers” and “you cannot say anything about future Marvel movies.” The latter is a lot easier to avoid.
It’s also reasonable that they DO in fact have plans for him, but know he can’t keep a secret apparently. So write the movies, get the production grinding into life, THEN talk to Ruffalo when it’s going to be public knowledge soon anyway.
Could be, but actors’ schedules need to get locked down, so they can’t exactly spring it on him.Unless he told his agents “Sign me up for whatever Marvel movies, but don’t tell me until two days before I’m due on set.”
That would be hilarious. “Why don’t I have anything on my schedule for two months? Should I take a va-” “DON’T ASK.”But semi-seriously, Marvel likely has language in their contracts with the various actors stating x amount of notice etc.
Well, as Mark said about what his agent told him on The Graham Norton Show when he first got the role … “Wake up at 5am and look out your window. If there isn’t a car, go back to sleep. But if there is …”
That’s the problem with going merged Professor Hulk, it’s pretty much the natural end of the story that sadly happened off screen.What we really need is the Devil Hulk.It’s nighttime now.The night is his time.
Unless they’re planning on drastically changing Jennifer Walter’s origin story it would be really awkward to try and shoehorn in a blood transfusion without showing Bruce, now it could just be for one scene, but I bet we see him there at least briefly.If I were to guess I’d say both he and Rhodey are pretty much sidelined until they announce another Avengers titled movie. They’re the only two characters without official projects in the works. Depending exactly on what plot points are kicking Falcon & Winter Soldier into gear it’s easy enough to say Rhodey and Bruce are focusing on rebuilding the compound and figuring out what the future of the team looks like.
(they’re both functional, but crippled btw… COINCIDENCE??? yeah probably, at this point Rhodey’s spinal injury hardly seems to be impacting him, but it could be a logical enough reason as to why they aren’t really in the field)
I’m sure he’ll be back, not just in She-Hulk, but at least in a cameo in a film down the road. While I don’t expect future writers and directors will lean into engineering crowd pop-type moments at the expense of whatever they want to do with these various characters, I’m sure Marvel will be hiring people creative enough to work in Hulk in a way that makes sense.
I don’t know how they’d fit him into Phase 4, but I’d love to see more of Ruffalo’s Hulk. He had a very different energy in the films as someone who wanted to do good but not necessarily in that traditional “superhero” way. I think particularly in Infinity War and Endgame they managed to highlight his intelligence as his real power, and I’d love to see the MCU play more with that.
Well the She-Hulk series seems the perfect place to slot him in, even if its only for the first episode.
Eh, they can just shoehorn him into the next Spider-Man movie. Otherwise they’ll have to give Marissa Tomei something to do, and apparently we can’t have that.
Wait, you’re giving the Hulk now to Marissa Tomei to do in the next Spider-Man movie?Ooof, hope she has super-stretch powers.
they are holding off for a Hulk/Wolverine buddy movie
“And the response was, ‘Well, we’re going to let this sort of come to an end and then see where we are somewhere in the future.’”
Boooo! Dumb suits.
Even when you know how this story ended before he told it Mark still has the knack of managing to make you wonder just a bit as to whether he was going to get the job.
As the member of the MCU with by far the best politics and activism: may his residual checks continue to fund Bernie Sanders, AOC, Pramila Jayapal, climate change activism, anti-fracking activism, and so much other good shit. Give this man your fucking roles and cash, Disney.
As the member of the MCU with by far the best politics and activism
“It’s called a grind, son.”
Chris Evans unfortunately fails the purity test.
maybe he is she-hulk..
To those talking about the pitfalls or benefits of another Hulk movie… Universal still owns Hulk- NOT Disney/Marvel. The Ang Lee movie was not a Marvel movie. The Hulk movie with Norton, was a one-off. Marvel can only use Hulk in an ‘including’ capacity- as part of a team- That’s it. Feige was kinda genius in how he’s used Hulk, to get around the restrictions imposed. No more Hulk solo movies, but he can be part of the team in Avengers movies. There can’t be a ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline or any solo movie, but Gladiator Hulk could be part of a Thor storyline and movie. Professor Hulk was a brilliant move- It created a loophole in the ownership issue, but will require some legal finesse and maneuvering so as not to violate the deal with Universal. Personally, I’d love to see more Ruffalo and Professor Hulk in the Disney MCU. But in the wake of the Spider-Man ongoing saga, and with Disney really taking over the MCU now… They’re gonna go with whatever will bring in the dollars, with as little ‘cost’ as possible.
I love the revisionist history that after Phase 3, Marvel are trying to expand out past their “A-List stars”.
I think I’d bet on hulk returning versus, say, View From the Top 2 happening.
I still don’t want to quite close the door on 13 Going On … (checks date) … 50.
I think he’s a genuine goofball, but his kvetching just sort-of works now as his “thing” – his schtick. And the Marvel suits, I’m guessing, accept it as such. Plus there aren’t anymore Big Time Spoilers to accidentally blow anymore, are there?
oh please hulk is one of the most iconic marvel characters of all time. the idea that they aren’t going to keep him in that role for the next 15 years is a joke. legally they can’t do a hulk standalone without universal’s go ahead but he’ll show up here and there until he dies and maybe well after that.
They should just put him in everyone’s movie, like he’s the new Stan Lee
I like the idea. Maybe not just Hulk though. Perhaps a rotation of a small handful of characters doing cameos.
I think the biggest issue now is before they could make a decent movie, in my opinion, they need to revert back to the classic Hulk. Professor Hulk has never been all that interesting of an idea, long term. The Hulk is most interesting when it’s about The dynamic between Bruce and the Hulk.
The dynamic between Bruce and the HulkExcept there’s no long-term appeal to this dynamic. It’s literally good for one movie in which it’s resolved in order to fight the villain and win, and that’s it. The Hulk is an incredibly one-note character, and the MCU has already explored it. “I’m always angry.” And now they’ve resolved it, off-screen, so it’s over.
We will have to agree to disagree on that. I think there is more that can be said for the Hulk in the MCU
And I’m supposed to have a talk with Kevin Feige in the next couple of months.Um, why didn’t he lead with that, instead of making it sound like he got fired? I mean, it’s one thing to be asked a dumb question, but to volunteer a dumb answer? That’s on him…
Yeah, that’s kinda unsurprising. They really sort of wrote themselves into a corner with the whole Professor Hulk thing. It’s an easy fix, but only if they can work out some kind of deal with Universal for solo films. The way I’d do it would be to just say that his lingering arm injury from snapping the gauntlet in Endgame triggered a further splintering of his psyche as the gamma in his system could only heal the wound by fully regenerating The Hulk’s entire body which is a massive shock to Banner’s mind. Then:
I’m guessing he’ll be making a bunch of cameo appearances in the early stages of phase 4. The character is an anchor to Earth for the cosmic set and, now that he’s likely the smartest guy in the room, better attuned to “Hulk Advise” than “Hulk Smash”.