The other day, Mark Ruffalo dropped some information that saddened Hulk fans. When asked about the potential for Bruce Banner and his alter ego to appear in a solo film, Ruffalo revealed that it didn't seem to be on the horizon. We had heard the same from Kevin Feige going all the way back to THE AVENGERS, but with Hulk taking a bigger role in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, now would be the time for the green guy to strike out on his own.
It turns out it may be more complicated than that. Here's what Ruffalo told Collider.
“As far as a Hulk movie, a standalone Hulk movie, Marvel doesn’t really have the rights to that yet. That’s still Universal’s property, so there’s that issue. That’s a big impediment to moving forward with that. Now I don’t think that’s insurmountable, by the way, but I don’t know where it’s going from here for me.”
This is the first we had heard that Universal controlled the fate of a solo Hulk film. The studio did produce both HULK and THE INCREDIBLE HULK back when Marvel Studios was not owned by Disney. The same went for IRON MAN which was released by Paramount. But, with THE AVENGERS, all of the rights seemed to fall under Disney's umbrella. Could Ruffalo have been wrong?
MTV News asked Marvel for a comment and they had this to say.
“Marvel owns the underlying rights to the character and thus any potential film.”
As it stands, Marvel has already defied the odds and struck a deal with Sony to include Spider-man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in exchange for production control over the rebooted character. Sony will still make a pretty penny on the deal, so Universal should be a workable relationship as well. That is unless there is something we don't know.
Rumors have had the Hulk's fate being determined at the end of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON with some making him a non-factor for AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. Whether that pans out remains to be seen, but so far it doesn't seem like we will be seeing Hulk on his own any time soon.
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON opens May 1st.