Captain America: Brave New World will pit Sam Wilson against President "Thunderbolt" Ross when the Commander in Chief transforms into the out-of-control, rage-fuelled Red Hulk.
Trailers and TV spots for the movie have only shown the villain sparingly and it's been obvious for a while that Red Hulk's scenes will be confined to a final act battle with the new Captain America. However, there may be less to that confrontation than expected.
Earlier today, Marvel Studios released a new featurette with a single frame of new Red Hulk footage. That prompted trusted insider @Cryptic4KQual to share a GIF and the caption, "How Marvel feels after showing 1 second of Red Hulk every 2 or 3 weeks because he's barely in the film."
Newer scooper @BeyondReporter then chipped in to claim that Red Hulk has only 4 minutes of screentime. If accurate, that's shocking, though it does line up with a test screening plot leak from last year which said, "[The] fight was teased the entire movie only for it to last about five minutes."
While we weren't necessarily expecting a 20-minute slugfest, if Marvel Studios hasn't planned this fight out perfectly, then fans are going to be beyond disappointed. After all, while it makes sense for Sam not to be fighting Red Hulk for 15 or 20 minutes given how underpowered he is in comparison to the rampaging monster, 5 minutes still seems awfully brief.
It's worth noting that Marvel Studios has spent a long time tinkering with this one; additional reshoots took place as recently as last month, for example, so things may have changed with Red Hulk. We'll see.
"It's surreal, it's incredible, it's exciting," Captain America: Brave New World director Julius Onah shared in a recent interview. "I've gotta tell you, when Red Hulk first became a possibility in this film, I just smiled. I was smiling like a kid. That was when I knew this was the idea and the right moment to put him out there in the world."
"Having an actor like Harrison Ford play Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross knowing that he's going to have scenes with Anthony Mackie...the Hulk character is such this expression of id but there's something about, especially a rage Hulk, that is so relatable and exciting for the audience."
He added, "There's also a real thematic core when it comes to the expression of anger in this film and what it means for the conflict at the centre of this film."
In Captain America: Brave New World, after meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam Wilson finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
The movie stars Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Xosha Roquemore, Carl Lumbly, with Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford. The movie is directed by Julius Onah and produced by Kevin Feige and Nate Moore. Louis D’Esposito and Charles Newirth serve as executive producers.
Captain America: Brave New World opens in U.S. theaters on February 14, 2025.