While Mark Ruffalo’s Incredible Hulk has become an important part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the fact that the only standalone Hulk movie in the MCU was one of the franchise's rare misses meant that those storylines and characters got left behind, and seemingly forgotten. But in recent years we’ve seen some of them come back, and now we know Liv Tyler will be back as Betty Ross, marking at least the third character from The Incredible Hulk to return…in a Captain America movie?
It was one thing when we learned that Tim Blake Nelson would be returning in Captain America: New World Order to reprise his role from the Hulk film and take his place as The Leader, a sequel tease from the second-ever MCU movie that never went anywhere. Then we learned that the newly recast Thunderbolt Ross, which sees Harrison Ford takeover after the death of William Hurt, would also appear. And now Liv Tyler is back. So fans have one question: Is this actually a secret Hulk movie? As one person shared on Twitter:
MCU when they make a Hulk movie without getting rights and just title it Captain America: pic.twitter.com/Lb4uMbkRIGMarch 27, 2023
While Disney no has the rights to nearly all Marvel characters following the acquisition of Fox, there are still a couple of heroes outstanding. Sony still has the rights to Spider-Man, and the two studios have agreed to work together on those projects, but Marvel doesn’t have a similar deal with Universal Pictures, with whom they share the rights to Hulk. Marvel can make movies that Hulk is in, but they can’t make Hulk movies without Universal.
Sam Wilson in this Hulk movie https://t.co/IZlpOkC2OU pic.twitter.com/FDq6RFjGpAMarch 27, 2023
And it seems to a lot of fans like Marvel might be trying a weird end run to make a Hulk movie without calling it that. While Mark Ruffalo himself is not currently confirmed to be part of the cast of Captain America: New World Order, there are a lot of other characters from that original movie that now are, and it just seems odd that they all will be returning in a different corner of the franchise.
So this really is gonna be a Hulk movie in disguise huh https://t.co/W8zv6N4cxVMarch 27, 2023
All the news that we’re hearing about the new Captain America movie has to do with these Hulk characters and as such Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson is starting to feel like an afterthought in what is supposed to be the character’s big-screen debut as the new Captain America. One certainly hopes he won’t really be overshadowed in his own story.
Hulk fans seeing Hulk characters in Captain America: New World Orderpic.twitter.com/CNiUOtPEiwMarch 28, 2023
Of course, even in the comics, there were lots of times when a hero would take on a villain that was generally associated with a different hero, and that seems to be the sort of thing that we’re looking at here. The title of the new movie itself has a very political bent, and that’s very much the purview of Captain America more than the Incredible Hulk, so in the end we should expect this will still be a Captain America movie. Still, as CinemaBlend's own Eric Swann points out, if we're bringing back characters from The Incredible Hulk, let's just go all out.
So now that The Incredible Hulk's Liv Tyler, William Hurt, Tim Roth and Tim Blake Nelson either have returned or will be back in the MCU, I guess there's just one more cast member who's yet to get the call... pic.twitter.com/m5F00zXKMiMarch 28, 2023
Captain America: New World Order is still more than two years away, so there’s likely a lot more about the film that we will learn as production gets underway, which is likely to be happening very soon. Fans who have wondered what happened to characters like The Leader or Betty Ross will find out soon, and even if they don’t cross paths with the Hulk here, perhaps the new Captain America movie will set up that possibility down the road.
