Were you hoping for a Hulk movie any time soon? Well, it's unfortunately no closer to happening according to Mark Ruffalo. Talking to USA Today recently, the actor confirmed that there are still some issues with making it a reality due to rights issues with Universal, something which obviously explains why the Jade Giant is going to show up in Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 rather than in that long rumoured Planet Hulk adaptation (which Thor's next movie may end up adapting in some form).
"Actually, it feels even further away. It's not Marvel's property, it's Universal's property. I don't know. It seems really problematic. I've been around long enough to be OK with it. There's only so much that's in my power and I'm not going to agonize over what is not in my power. I definitely try to limit that to my kids and the things that really matter to me. I'd love to do it, it'd be really fun. There's a lot still to do with the character. I always try to think about different places we could go with him."
As for what he hopes to see go down in Thor: Ragnarok (after confirming that The Hulk isn't going to be making an appearance in Captain America: Civil War due to Marvel "saving" him), the actor went on to elaborate on his recent comments about wanting to see the Green Goliath split from Bruce Banner and for the two to then meet. Based on his below comments, Ruffalo is really pushing for this to become a reality, so it should be interesting to see if Marvel pays attention to him.
"When you get off of the planet Earth, you can start playing with that stuff a little bit. I'm angling for it. I don't know if it'll happen now, but at some point, I'd like to see it happen. When I was doing Age of Ultron — doing the Scarlet Witch acid trip scenes — it really took me a long time to figure out what the Hulk would be afraid of. And then I realized, it was Banner. That relationship is what we're all so into, but we've never seen them in the same scene together — you're either one or the other, or somewhere in between. But I always imagined that that could be pretty exciting if we could pull it off. In the Marvel Universe, there is some precedence for it. I remember as a kid, seeing a few of the comics that'd have this multidimensional thing, so there's a lot of ways to do it ... if we could find the right context to use it."
Finally, Ruffalo confirmed that he's spoken to Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi and seems to confirm that Loki is also going to factor into the cosmic road trip the God of Thunder embarks on with The Hulk. After what happened in The Avengers, that should be pretty good fun...
"I don't know what the story is yet, but it'll be (Loki) and Thor, and then I'll be in there here and there. But I don't know any of the particulars quite yet. I've talked to Taika a little bit and I like where it's headed. ... Chris (Hemsworth) and I have a really good time together, we goof off and play around when Tom Hiddleston is around. So it'll be a lot of funny back-and-forth, especially with Taika, he does that really well. It'll have that kind of antagonistic Odd Couple-thing going on."