While his Avengers cohorts like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor were each treated to their own trilogies of standalone adventures, the Hulk was confined to supporting roles in ensemble team-ups and other characters’ solo outings. Due to the rights to the character being tangled up with Universal, Marvel Studios hasn’t been able to give Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk a solo movie.
2008’s The Incredible Hulk was technically the second installment in the MCU, but it starred a different incarnation of Bruce Banner, played by Edward Norton, before he was rebooted with Ruffalo’s version in 2012’s The Avengers. So, here are 5 Reasons Why The Hulk Still Needs An MCU Solo Movie (And 5 Why It’s Too Late).
Still needs a solo movie: The fans love him
The Hulk is one of Marvel’s most popular heroes. He’s one of the company’s few characters that were widely known by mainstream audiences before the MCU started.
Unlike Iron Man and Captain America, who only rose to prominence when the MCU took the world by storm, the Hulk (like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four) was a familiar icon just from his comic book appearances, long before mainstream audiences discovered the Marvel universe through big-screen outings in the past decade. And on top of that, the MCU’s version of the character and his arc have been well-received by fans and critics alike.
It’s too late: His MCU character arc is basically finished
Whereas the solo trilogies of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor were integral in developing their MCU character arcs, the Hulk’s arc is pretty much over. A few years ago, a Hulk solo movie could’ve helped to bridge the story gap between his unexpected departure at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron and his reappearance as a gladiator on Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok, or show how his powers developed between the first and second Avengers movies.
But now that he’s literally saved the entire universe and made peace with his life as the Hulk, the character’s journey is complete.
Still needs a solo movie: Mark Ruffalo is fantastic in the role
Ever since his first appearance in The Avengers, Mark Ruffalo has been praised for his portrayal of Bruce Banner. The Bill Bixby series will always have a special place in fans’ hearts, but Ruffalo just might be the definitive on-screen Hulk.
The writing of MCU movies haven’t always served the character well, but Ruffalo has always done a fantastic job of playing Banner as timid and conflicted, and contrasting that by playing the Hulk as an all-out brute. In a solo movie that puts him in the spotlight with a strong script and a director who understands the character as well as Ruffalo does, the actor could do something phenomenal.
It’s too late: The Infinity Saga is over
The last 23 movies in the MCU have been given the name “the Infinity Saga” as a blanket term to describe the epic story that began with Tony Stark becoming Iron Man and ended with Iron Man sacrificing himself to save the universe from a cosmic madman. The Hulk was one of the heroes of the Infinity Saga, but that story is over now.
A new saga is beginning, led by Captain Marvel and Black Panther and Doctor Strange. Giving the Hulk a solo movie would feel like a step backward like Marvel was clinging to the past instead of stepping boldly into the future.
Still needs a solo movie: There’s never been a truly great Hulk movie
Ang Lee’s outlandish choice of visual style marred 2003’s Hulk, while tensions between Marvel and Edward Norton meant that 2008’s The Incredible Hulk turned out as a mess. As a result, there’s never been a truly great Hulk movie.
Ever since Kevin Feige, a Marvel fanboy and veritable genius (both on the business side of things and the creative side), took full control of the MCU from Ike Perlmutter (who we have to blame for a lot of the MCU’s failures), he’s been nailing pretty much every movie. He wasn’t running things when The Incredible Hulk got made, but now that he is the man in charge, fans of the Hulk could get the movie the character has always deserved.
It’s too late: Marvel planned the Hulk’s last three appearances as a kind of solo movie
When it became apparent that the Hulk was very unlikely to get a traditional solo movie in the MCU – at least not for a while – Mark Ruffalo and producer Kevin Feige came up with the idea to create a Hulk solo movie through his appearances in three non-solo movies.
The Hulk’s appearances in Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame were planned out to stand on their own as a kind of Hulk solo movie. Amidst the other narrative threads at play, those movies did give us a great Hulk storyline (even though Endgame’s ending for that “Hulk trilogy” proved to be a little controversial, because his development happened off-screen).
Still needs a solo movie: He played major roles in Infinity War and Endgame
The opening scene of Avengers: Infinity War established Thanos’ unparalleled strength when, onboard the Statesman, the Mad Titan fought the Hulk and ended up overpowering him. Then, Heimdall saved the Hulk and sent him to Earth to warn Doctor Strange about the coming of Thanos. Right before the final battle in Avengers: Endgame, the Hulk donned the Iron Gauntlet and snapped his fingers to bring everybody back.
He’s played a prominent role in the last two MCU event movies. Surely, he’s had enough impact on this fictional world to warrant a chapter of its story that focuses entirely on him.
It’s too late: There’s no place for him in the MCU anymore
Unless Taika Waititi can find a place for the Hulk in Thor: Love and Thunder, which seems unlikely, the character doesn’t really have a place in the MCU anymore. Every character that he was close to – Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, etc. – is either dead or retired. Even with the MCU expanding its scale on Disney+, there’s no place for the Hulk on the upcoming slate.
The Hulk’s best bet at fitting into Phase Four is appearing in a supporting capacity in the upcoming She-Hulk series, but there doesn’t seem to be room for a Hulk solo movie on the MCU’s horizon.
Still needs a solo movie: There are endless storytelling possibilities
With a rich history of comic book storylines that have taken the Hulk across all kinds of parallel timelines and far into the distant future, the character presents Marvel with endless storytelling possibilities. The “Smart Hulk” persona presented in Avengers: Endgame might not be right for a solo movie, since he’s very mild-mannered and doesn’t like to do any of the things that make the Hulk fun, like smashing.
But the Hulk has constantly changed over the course of the MCU. Smart Hulk doesn’t have to be the last stop. He could lose control of his powers again, or fight Red Hulk, or go back to space – anything’s possible.
It’s too late: The character no longer has any conflict
A movie can’t exist without conflict. Conflict is the foundation of all drama. The most basic requirement for an MCU solo movie is to have a conflicted hero. Tony Stark is a carefree playboy who made billions by funding wars. Stephen Strange is an arrogant surgeon whose career is ruined by a car wreck. T’Challa takes his throne as King of Wakanda and has to accept that all of his ancestors had been ruling the nation unethically.
Bruce Banner has the ultimate conflict – the Jekyll-and-Hyde struggle between Banner and his mean, green alter ego – but since Avengers: Endgame resolved this conflict, the character has no need for his own movie.
