Summary
- Eric Bana is not interested in reprising his role as the Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- The success of Spider-Man: No Way Home set a high bar for storytelling where the MCU’s multiverse is concerned.
- The standalone Hulk films have not fared well for Marvel, making a team-up of the three gamma-irradiated green giants highly unlikely.
Eric Bana isn’t interested in reprising the role of the Hulk, which he portrayed only once over two decades ago, in 2003. During a recent interview, Bana addressed whether he’d consider returning as Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Bana succinctly told the hosts of the Fifi, Fev & Nick For Breakfast podcast:
I can’t see it. I can’t see it […] Nah, I can’t see it happening.
With the return of both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parkers in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the bar has been set extremely high when it comes to successfully telling a compelling story within the MCU’s multiverse. The teaming of the former webslingers with the cinema’s current wallcrawler, Tom Holland, led to a nearly two billion-dollar box office for Sony, as No Way Home ended its theatrical run with a jaw-dropping $1.9 billion.
And in addition to being a financial success, No Way Home was a hit with both critics and fans alike. The film achieved an almost perfect audience score on Rotten Tomatoes at 98%, while the majority of reviews led to No Way Home registering an impressive 93% on the Tomatometer — to say nothing of its “A+” CinemaScore. Clearly, there’s a market for uniting multiple versions of superheroes on the big screen, but Bana doesn’t seem to want to play in that lucrative sandbox.
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Likelihood of a Hulk Team-Up in the MCU
Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney+
Fans wanting to see Eric Bana, Ed Norton and Mark Ruffalo’s Incredible Hulks unite on the big screen à la Spider-Man: No Way Home-style isn’t likely to happen. Unfortunately, the standalone Hulk films haven’t fared well for Marvel over the years. Eric Bana got the first crack at the character in director Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003), but the movie only made $260 million worldwide. And Norton’s turn as the gamma-irradiated green giant only did slightly better in 2008.
Norton’s The Incredible Hulk only managed to make $265 million globally on the heels of Iron Man’s MCU debut of $586 million earlier that same summer. So, while the notion of Bana, Norton and The Avengers’ Hulk, Ruffalo, teaming up on the Silver Screen is an intriguing one, there may not be enough interest in the character to justify bringing the three Hulks together in the MCU.
Release Date June 19, 2003
Runtime 137
Tagline Rage. Power. Freedom.
Bana’s resistance to returning as the so-called disastrous Hulk is certainly justified. Even though critics gave the 2003 Hulk a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the fans lambasted the bizarre interpretation of the Marvel Comics character. When all the smoke finally cleared, Hulk only managed to smash its way to an abysmal 29% audience score on RT. So, don’t look for Bana to Hulk out and turn any shades of green in the future.
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