Mark Ruffalo’s confirmation about Hulk appearing in Captain America: Brave New World is cleared up

Mark Ruffalo is no stranger to unknowingly spoiling Marvel secrets. He and Tom Holland have a humorous reputation of being the two least trusted actors at the movie studio due to some amusing slip-ups. In 2017, Ruffalo would notoriously accidentally stream the first few minutes of Thor: Ragnarok from the premiere after his pre-show red carpet social media livestream was unknowingly left rolling as the actor put his phone back in his pocket and 2,500 online viewers could hear the live audio of the premiere audience watching and laughing at the jokes from the film.

Recently, Ruffalo attended a Q&A that reflected on his career at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Sunday. Anne Thompson, the moderator, asked him if he would be appearing in the upcoming film, Captain America: Brave New World. Ruffalo answered, “Yeah.” and nodded his head. Thompson responded, “Are you allowed to talk about that?” Ruffalo replied, “Yeah. It’s going to be great!” His answer started to catch excitement among fans. However, according to Variety, it was revealed by sources that the Academy Award-nominated actor of Poor Things had misspoken at the Q&A.

Multiple sources have assured Variety that “Ruffalo is not actually going to be in Brave New World. Instead, he misspoke, thinking he was agreeing that Brave New World is one of Marvel’s next films, not that he was going to be in it.” This news walking back the comments does not appear to be coming from Ruffalo himself. Could it be damage control from Marvel Studios? In 2021, prior to the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, a leaked on-set picture of Andrew Garfield in the Spider-Man suit made its way online, which prompted the actor to deny any claims that he would be appearing in the film. Fast forward to 2024 and Garfield is now known to have a sizable role in that film and the leaked picture was legit.

Captain America: Brave New World was also reported to be going through extensive reshoots after some test screenings and even hired a new writer to punch up some of the script. Perhaps an effort was made to connect the Hulk to the film. Or even just a quick cameo in a post-credits scene like in Shang-Chi.