We’ve known for a while that any plans that Marvel Studios had for a standalone Hulk movie have been shuttered, with Universal Studios clinging to the film rights. It’s been nearly a decade since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, with still no new project about the green guy in sight. Ever since Mark Ruffalo won audiences over in The Avengers, we’ve been hoping to see more of his Bruce Banner, but the character has been orphaned to other MCU franchises. Ruffalo and Kevin Feige are trying to make the best of the situation, hoping to build a sort of “Hulk” trilogy in Phase 3.

Ruffalo tells Cinema Blend:

So basically, Kevin [Feige] pulled me aside before this, and said, ‘If you were gonna do a… if we were going to do a standalone Hulk movie, what would it be?’ And I said, ‘I think it should be this, this, this, and this and this, and ends up like this.’ And he’s like, ‘I love that. Why don’t we do that in the next three movies, starting with Thor 3 and then we go into Avengers 3 and 4.’ And I was like, ‘That sounds great!’ And so we are at the beginning of this arc.

We’ve heard this idea of Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel serving as a long-term arc for the Hulk in the past, but it’s nice to get another confirmation from Ruffalo himself. With the Hulk appearing more lucid and verbal in Ragnarok, we can definitely see that the character has gone through some significant developments since we last saw him in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It is likely that by the end of the Taika Waititi film (which is receiving positive responses so far) that we’ll get a good sense of where Banner’s story goes from there.

Regarding Hulk’s changes in Ragnarok, Ruffalo continues:

Hulk speaking is the start to separating of these two individuals, these identities in this split-identity person, and where that’s going to end up going. So it was really interesting to me. He’s like a baby! He’s like a five year old or six year old. So he has the same syntax, he has the same world view, and so it was fun. It’s like Chris [Hemsworth] – we all got to reinvent our characters in this.

Meanwhile, we can only cross our fingers that something will work out between Universal and Marvel/Disney. Recently, Universal and Disney made a deal to basically co-distribute M. Night Shyamalan’s own superhero movie Glass. The Shyamalan movie is a follow-up to both his 2000 film Unbreakable (distributed by Disney under the Touchstone label) and his 2017 film Split (distributed by Universal). With Glass using characters from both films, the rival production studios agreed to have Universal distribute the film in the United States, while Disney distributes the film internationally.

So, Disney? Universal? Make Hulk happen, please.

Source: Cinema Blend