Joss Whedon is the man who brought you The Avengers, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and the criminally underappreciated sci-fi series Dollhouse, but some people are never satisfied. They’re demanding that Whedon and Marvel make a movie with The Hulk as the main character. And despite the fact that Whedon has already explained his reservations about the prospective project, it hasn’t stopped Bruce Banner fans from asking “Why, why, why can’t you do a Hulk spinoff?” (in super whiny voices, probably).
A few weeks back, Whedon said that making a film centered on the angry green guy “would be very, very hard. The problem is he is a very popular character, but he’s not a superhero. Half of him is a superhero, half is a werewolf. You can’t structure it like a superhero movie.” Unsatisfied, the media pursued the writer/director for more clarification. Speaking with Deadline, a relenting Whedon explained that “The Hulk is the most difficult Marvel property. Is he a monster? Is he a hero? Are you going to root for a protagonist who spends all his time trying to stop the reason you came to the movie from happening?” he asked.
“I don’t think the first two movies nailed it,” added the director, “but I don’t envy the task. It was easier to have him in a group [in The Avengers] than to build everything around him. If he was Hulk for the entire movie, I think Mark [Ruffalo] at some point would go, ‘why am I here?’ I would be less inclined to pursue a storyline where the Hulk is only ever the Hulk. Mark and I loved the Hulk and went over and over the concept of rage and how it should manifest, and that part of it was fascinating to both of us.”
Ruffalo concurs. “A lot of folks have been asking about the next Hulk,” tweeted the actor, “The next time you see my Hulk it will be in The Avengers 2. No plans for stand alone movie.” Okay, so what about the Black Widow?
