Mark Ruffalo has been chatting about Avengers: Infinity War, the upcoming Marvel Studios crossover movie, in which he will reprise his dual roles of Bruce Banner and The Incredible Hulk.
The big green guy last saw most of the Avengers in Age Of Ultron, which ended with the jade giant fleeing from his friends in a quinjet. That quinjet ended up taking the Hulk to space, where he bumped into Chris Hemsworth’s lord of thunder, in Thor: Ragnarok. The Hulk’s intelligence is growing, with Banner spending less time in control.
Hulk and Banner will return to Earth in Infinity War, which should be interesting. Banner was developing a romantic relationship with Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow), before the Hulk’s decision to vacate the planet. In one interview, Ruffalo has teased the current status of the Banner/Widow relationship:
“In this film? They’re star-crossed lovers, so it’ll be something they’re dealing with for the rest of their living days I think, whether it’s requited or unrequited. I don’t imagine that’s going to go away any time soon in one iteration or another.”
So if Bruce is star-crossed lover mode, what is the Hulk up to? In a separate interview, Ruffalo said this:
“Once again I think [Hulk is] trying to find his place in the line-up. He’s having some difficulties integrating with the rest of the group, but he’s also privy to some information that is essential for their survival… Banner knows probably more about Thanos than probably anybody, and he’s really trying to impress on everybody how dangerous he is. It’s a little bit of a Chicken Little [scenario]. He comes in screaming bloody murder… He’s seen what damage [Thanos] can cause, and how powerful he is, and the entire group is in disarray, so he’s also getting caught up on what’s happened here and is trying to get them to transcend their differences and impress upon them how much danger they’re actually facing.”
Hulk is attempting to find his place, then, while Banner is trying to rally the troops and express the magnitude of Josh Brolin’s purple-headed supervillain. Thanos was first seen in the post-credits scene for The Avengers, which was also Ruffalo’s first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It should be fun to see how this all shakes out. Avengers: Infinity War has a UK release date of April 26th, 2018.