Ang Lee's Hulk movie was a weird addition to the genre, but state of the art VFX brought the Jade Giant to life in an admittedly impressive way back in 2003. Eric Bana played the hero, but by the time The Incredible Hulk rolled around, Edward Norton had been cast as the new Bruce Banner.
That obviously didn't last, and Mark Ruffalo replaced the actor in 2012's The Avengers.
Talking to Marc Maron on his WTF podcast, Bana looked back at his time starring as the Marvel Comics icon. "It wasn’t a quick yes, that’s for sure," he started. "It took me a while to get my head around it. I wasn’t privy to the script prior to signing onto the film. It’s one of the only films I have done where that was the case. It just wasn’t the type of film that I saw myself doing."
"You certainly didn’t go into a film like that thinking you were going to do more than one...that just wasn’t in play," Bana said when asked why a sequel never happened. "The expectations are not the way they are now. I approached it as a one-off." Confirming that he was never asked to return in 2008, the actor added that he's seen Norton's version, but not Ruffalo's: "He’s the one who worked it out. He found his stride."
As for whether the superhero genre is one he could return to, it doesn't sound like we should bank on it happening. "It’s why I haven't re-dabbled in that area," he admitted. "They’re not the kind of movie that I race out and see myself so that conversation is something I have with myself if I want to be a part of it."
So, that's probably a hard "no" to some sort of surprise cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as the original big screen Hulk! Bana has, however, dipped his toe into the blockbuster realm over the past few years with movies like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Star Trek.