Last month, word broke that Mark Ruffalo has signed on to reprise his role as Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok after his character pulled a disappearing act at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. It was the first Avengers movie that revitalized the Hulk’s popularity among the general public, but according to Ruffalo, the prospects of a new Hulk solo movie are even dimmer than before.

“[A Hulk movie] feels even further away,” said Ruffalo during an interview with USA Today. “It’s not Marvel’s property, it’s Universal’s property. I don’t know. It seems really problematic.”

There is actually something very problematic with that statement. Does anyone think that Marvel and Universal don’t want to make money? The two companies have already proven that they can work together, when The Incredible Hulk movie was released in 2008. While $138 million at the domestic box office is normally something to be proud of, The Incredible Hulk is still Marvel Studios’ lowest grossing film.

Of course, this was before The Avengers and before Ruffalo took over the role from Ed Norton. If the same deal between Marvel and Universal is still in place, Marvel Studios could theoretically fund and produce the next Hulk movie while Universal would distribute that film. Or perhaps the deep pockets of Marvel’s parent company, Disney, could change the terms of that deal. The point is that if Marvel still believed in the Hulk as a solo franchise character, we’d be up to the third MCU Hulk film by now.

Despite the apparent unwillingness of Marvel to pull the trigger on another Hulk movie, Ruffalo reiterated that it is something that he wants to do.

“I’d love to do it, it’d be really fun,” said Ruffalo. “There’s a lot still to do with the character. I always try to think about different places we could go with him… 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.”

Thor: Ragnarok will be released on November 3, 2017.

Comic book movie fans, do you think that the time has come for a new Hulk solo movie? Indulge your Gamma rage in the comments section below!

—

HT: USA Today
Image Credit: Marvel Studios