We know Bruce Banner, his alter ego the Hulk, and star Mark Ruffalo will be returning in Thor: Ragnarok. However, we are left to wonder when we will see a solo Hulk outing.
Leading up to Marvel Studio’s Phase 3 reveal a year ago, speculation surrounding the announcement suggested we would finally get a solo Hulk sequel with Ruffalo. However, this proved to be unfounded, and now Mark Ruffalo has spoken to USA Today about why.
“Actually, it feels even further away. It’s not Marvel’s property, it’s Universal’s property. I don’t know. It seems really problematic.”
Universal Pictures still owns the distribution rights to a solo Hulk film, meaning if Marvel Studios were to want to produce one, Marvel would take on the cost of production, and have to share the profits with Universal. This is a proposition that probably doesn’t sit well with Marvel, and parent company Disney.
Mark Ruffalo doesn’t seem to concerned though, as Marvel is working around this issue by bringing the Hulk back for Ragnarok. If he had it his way though, Ruffalo would like to see the character develop more regarding the dichotomy of Bruce Banner and the Hulk, as well as the relationship between the two.
“When you get off of the planet Earth, you can start playing with that stuff a little bit. I’m angling for it. I don’t know if it’ll happen now, but at some point, I’d like to see it happen. When I was doing Age of Ultron — doing the Scarlet Witch acid trip scenes — it really took me a long time to figure out what the Hulk would be afraid of. And then I realized, it was Banner. That relationship is what we’re all so into, but we’ve never seen them in the same scene together — you’re either one or the other, or somewhere in between. But I always imagined that that could be pretty exciting if we could pull it off. In the Marvel Universe, there is some precedence for it. I remember as a kid, seeing a few of the comics that’d have this multidimensional thing, so there’s a lot of ways to do it … if we could find the right context to use it.”
Despite only being in the two Avengers films, and a cameo after the credits of Iron Man 3, we have seen Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk evolve, and his performance become more nuanced. Ruffalo’s desired direction for the character might be an interesting way to continue that evolution while not having a standalone Hulk film.
When asked about his role in Ragnarok, Mark Ruffalo revealed that he doesn’t know what the story is yet, but said that he has spoken with director Taika Waititi and revealed that Tom Hiddleston will return indeed return as Loki.
“I don’t know what the story is yet, but it’ll be (Loki) and Thor, and then I’ll be in there here and there. But I don’t know any of the particulars quite yet. I’ve talked to Taika a little bit and I like where it’s headed. … Chris (Hemsworth) and I have a really good time together, we goof off and play around when Tom Hiddleston is around. So it’ll be a lot of funny back-and-forth, especially with Taika, he does that really well. It’ll have that kind of antagonistic Odd Couple-thing going on.”
The Hulk vs. Thor, and Hulk vs. Loki were some of the most memorable, and humorous, scenes in 2012’s The Avengers. Hopefully Ragnarok will give us more incredible moments between these characters.
Thor: Ragnarok begins filming in Australia in June of 2016 and is scheduled to be released in theaters on November 3, 2017.
What do you think? What direction would you like to see Marvel and Mark Ruffalo take the Hulk? Sound off below!
Source: USA Today
