The trailers for Avengers: Infinity War ended with an awesome shot of Earth's Mightiest Heroes charging into battle, with The Hulk among them. However, in the final cut of the movie, Bruce Banner never actually Hulked Out, suggesting a major change must have been made.
Throw in merchandise showing the Jade Giant bursting out of that Hulkbuster armour, and it seemed to be a simple example of Marvel Studios changing course as the story developed.
Rather than have The Hulk make his grand return in that final battle, the decision was made for Bruce to be unable to transform, leaving the team without one of its strongest members. It also meant that, by the time we caught up with the Green Goliath again in Avengers: Endgame, he had become the new Smart Hulk.
Talking at the Emerald City Comic Con (via The PopVerse), Ruffalo reflected on how many changes Avengers: Infinity War's ending went through when it came to The Hulk.
"We were shooting [Avengers:] Infinity War, and Hulk was supposed to come busting out of the Hulkbuster at the end and we shot that, we shot it four times and it wasn’t working, and we realized — well, the [Russo Brothers] realized — that we couldn’t have Hulk save the day again, and we had to have Banner...lose."
"That was the kind of thing where it was in the script one way for two years," the actor continues, "and then when we came to shoot it, we decided it would be better if Hulk didn’t show up, and Banner had to try to make friends with him to get him to show up. We shot that scene like 5 times over the course of a year. Me, by myself, in the Hulkbuster."
We'd love to see those deleted scenes, but the change was arguably for the better (even if it means we missed out on a very cool shot of The Hulk busting out of Iron Man's armour). Banner can now change in and out of his Smart Hulk form at will, but if the long-rumoured World War Hulk movie happens, we'd love to see the original version return.
Do you think this change to Avengers: Infinity War's ending was for the best?