After two semi-successful attempts at bringing Bruce Banner’s The Hulk to the big screen, most everyone agreed Joss Whedon finally got it right in The Avengers. However, the argument was maybe it worked this time because Hulk was a supporting character instead of the star. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige didn’t agree with that and threw around the idea of possibly making another standalone Hulk movie in the future, this one starring Mark Ruffalo who is under a multi-picture contract with Marvel.
The questions are when would that happen and what story would it tell? In a new interview with MTV, Feige said he’s still interested in doing a Hulk movie but that it would likely be after The Avengers 2, making it part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Three. He also said popular comic book storylines such as Planet Hulk and World War Hulk were definitely possibilities. After the jump, read his exact quotes and how these stories could lead into The Avengers 3.
Here’s Feige’s quotes about the Hulk from MTV, separated for dramatic effect.
Do I think Hulk can carry a movie and be as entertaining as he was in ‘Avengers’? I do believe that. I do believe he absolutely could. We certainly are not even going to attempt that until ‘Avengers 2.’ So there’s a lot of time to think about it.
Considering, as far as we know, a solo Hulk film doesn’t even have a screenwriter attached and Phase Two already has four, maybe five movies, before 2015′s The Avengers sequel, this statement was already pretty obvious [He's also already said as much, I know.] But it does raise questions of, if Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Guardians of the Galaxy and maybe Ant-Man are all doing stuff before The Avengers 2, what has Bruce Banner been doing? Maybe we’ll see something in one of those movies as a reminder, or a larger role in The Avengers 2 to set up the standalone movie.
As for what that could be?
I don’t think there’s a lot that we couldn’t do someday, as the cinematic universe continues to grow and expand and get as big as the comic book universe. ”Planet Hulk’ is a cool story, ‘World War Hulk’ is a cool story. I think there’s pitfalls of continuity-overload, and mythology getting so dense that it almost collapses in on itself [with those cosmic projects]. It happens every few decades or so in the comics. Apart from that, I’d say everything is on the table.
Planet Hulk, written by Greg Pak, was a storyline which saw a group of Earth bound superheroes (including Iron Man and Dr. Strange) fed up with Hulk’s actions and send him into space. He encounters a worm hole and ends up on a planet where he leads an uprising and becomes the King. The follow up to that, World War Hulk, sees Hulk return to Earth and retaliate on the heroes who sent him into space with his new found followers.
Either of those sound like a pretty excellent and exciting way to give Hulk something new and fresh to do in a film. Picture this. The Avengers are fighting Thanos in The Avengers 2 along with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Hulk does something really really bad, maybe kills a major character, and after the battle, the Avengers vote for the Guardians to send Hulk away. End of Avengers 2, beginning of The Incredible Hulk 2 in space. In fact, if Planet Hulk turns into Incredible Hulk 2, World War Hulk could pretty easily be The Avengers 3. Hulk and his alien minions fight The Avengers on Earth.
Of course, this is all total and utter speculation from someone who knows very little of those books, but if the general idea of the stories are on the table, as Feige says, it’s certainly a possibility. And a cool one at that.
Do you think The Incredible Hulk will still work as a standalone with Mark Ruffalo in the part? Do these storylines fit?