In a roundtable interview from San Diego's Comic-Con, Kevin Feige expressed his excitement over the addition of Mark Ruffalo to the cast of The Avengers:
"Ruffalo is Joss Whedon's Banner. He is the Banner that is going to be in that [Bill] Bixby type, wants to help people and is somewhat ashamed of what he goes through but isn't as strong and angry in his Banner form as he is in his Hulk form, which is something we haven't really seen in the past films."
"Something like how he was portrayed in the Ultimates, a guy who just wants to be left alone and wear his glasses and do his science."
Courtesy of
IGN.
Picture of Mark Ruffalo, Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige
In a separate interview with
Movieline Feige was asked if had to do it over again would he have been quite as honest in his statement
confirming Edward Norton would not return as The Hulk?
He hesitated before answering. “Yeah. I didn’t think I was being all that candid, frankly. It’s something that I think needed to be very clear [about].”
Feige wanted to make it clear why he wanted the statement to sound so truthful:
“It’s because we were talking to other actors. I didn’t want them to think they were in a contest.”
Ed Norton's agent fired back a severe response stating the response was
a purposefully misleading, inappropriate attempt to paint our client in a negative light.” Norton responded much more calmly in a direct statement by saying
“I am very sincerely grateful to Marvel for extending the offer and even more so for giving me the chance to be a [part] of the Hulk’s long and excellent history.”
Kevin Feige seemed to be very appreciative of Mr. Norton's response and wants to movie forward:
“I think his statement afterwards was great, and there’s no bad blood.”