Mark Ruffalo confirms he’ll never be in a stand-alone Hulk movie, calls out Universal

It feels like every hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has their own stand-alone movie, but one that never will is Mark Ruffalo’s version of the Hulk.

Following Marvel’s live-action panel at D23, Disney’s biennial convention, Mark Ruffalo told Variety that while he very much wanted a stand-alone movie for Hulk, due to Universal “not playing nicely” it wasn’t going to happen.

“I want to make one thing perfectly clear today,” Ruffalo said. “A stand-alone Hulk movie will never happen because Universal has the rights to the stand-alone Hulk movie and, for some reason, they don’t know how to play well with Marvel. And clearly they don’t like money. But I feel like I have two or three years before I’m too old to play the Hulk.

“We’ve talked about it and I just don’t see it in the cards.”

Ruffalo, who was joined by Avengers: Infinity War co-star Don Cheadle, said that while the Hulk was an important character to him, there was no way this could happen. Cheadle, however, was quick to point out that if the corporations wanted to work something out, they could find a way, so it must be Ruffalo that they have an issue with.

To some extent, he’s not wrong — well, about the corporations, anyway. Marvel and Sony worked out a deal in 2015 that would allow Spider-Man to be apart of the MCU while Sony retained the rights to the character. There’s no reason that an Incredible Hulk movie couldn’t happen — especially with Ruffalo on board to make the movie — but it’s clear that Universal isn’t interested in working with Marvel.

Other characters, like Deadpool and the X-Men, also can’t be in MCU movies because of Fox’s ownership over the characters.

Hopefully one day, all of the studios will get along, but unfortunately, that is not today.