There have already been two movies where the Incredible Hulk is the main attraction. They starred Eric Bana and Edward Norton, respectively. There was even a whole TV show, plus a bunch of TV movies, in the pre-CGI days, starring muscleman Lou Ferrigno painted green. Alas, none of them have starred current live-action Bruce Banner Mark Ruffalo. The acclaimed thespian has been playing the big, angry guy for over a decade now, but Marvel has yet to give him his own stand-alone, despite him asking for one. Well, don’t hold your breath for one.
In a new interview with GQ (in a bit teased out by Deadline), Ruffalo said he’d “love” to do a movie where he gets center stage. Alas, doing the Hulk part of his role ain’t cheap.
“It’s very expensive if you did a whole movie, which is why they use the Hulk so sparingly,” Ruffalo said. “I priced myself out!”
Could this have something to do with the mockery that greeted the CGI in another Hulk-related show: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, where poor Emmy-winning actress Tatiana Maslany was fitted with effects that lots of people found not up-to-snuff. That’s probably because the VFX houses who worked on it were reportedly underpaid and overworked. Ruffalo’s Banner/Hulk appeared a bit on that one, too.
Anyway, Ruffalo is currently Oscar-nominated again — it’s his fourth time — for the very different Poor Things, but surely he’ll be back on the Hulk beat very soon. In the meantime, you’ll have to wait nearly a year to see him alongside Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon-ho’s cruelly delayed (by Warner Bros. Discovery, natch) Mickey 17.