Ruffalo Talks MCU Future For The Incredible Hulk

Mark Ruffalo has portrayed the character of Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk since 2012’s Marvel’s The Avengers and has been one of the bright spots of the MCU since. However, fan sentiment regarding the character is largely that he hasn’t gotten his due.

Despite the character helping to kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s overlooked and underrated The Incredible Hulk, the Green Goliath has largely been relegated to being a supporting character. And though he’s had great turns in all of the Avengers films and was, arguably, the standout in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, fans have been clamoring for Hulk to get another solo project.

Even so, there still don’t seem to be any plans for such a film, with the “Smart Hulk” version of the character popping up again in the recent She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law series, once again in a supporting role.

[MINOR SPOILERS]

After appearing in two episodes, though, Banner makes an auspicious exodus on a spaceship after numerous references to Sakaar, the gladiatorial planet that Hulk lived on for the two years between Age of Ultron and Ragnarok. This is obviously planting the seeds for a future storyline that could perhaps even lead to a Planet Hulk film or lead to the inclusion of comics-favorite characters like Skaar, the son of The Hulk. According to Jessica Gao, the series showrunner, during an interview with EW though, there aren’t any plans for a Hulk/Sakaar story currently, and that the character’s exit was done that way so that Marvel could “pick up that story. If they wanted.”

And that’s certainly not what fans want to hear and could mean that audiences are in for a long wait to see The Incredible Hulk on their screens again. Ruffalo, though, for his part, is keen to continue and explore some of the most acclaimed Hulk storylines, recently telling Variety:

There have been some conversations about what happened in the two years where Hulk abandoned Banner and the Avengers [on Sakaar], and the emergence of Smart Hulk, which hasn’t ever fully been answered. I do think that the trip to Sakaar is a good place to start and what that means to the idea of what the fans have been asking for — this idea of Planet Hulk or World War Hulk or just the journey that Banner and Hulk have to make to come to peace with each other. That’s really interesting to me, and I do feel like there is some interest in exploring that down the line.

While it did take Marvel 14 years to come back to the mythos of The Incredible Hulk with the currently airing She-Hulk, there seems to be a fair a bit of promise that a Hulk solo feature could be a reality much sooner than later.