If you're not trying to make Hulk angry, this probably isn't a good strategy.
Rumors of Mark Ruffalo appearing as Hulk in the upcoming "Captain America: Civil War" have been circulating for months. The actor reportedly had a call from Robert Downey Jr. about the film, aka probably trying to recruit him for Team Iron Man. Ruffalo was supposedly spotted on set in Germany and, in an interview, Anthony Mackie added to the speculation that the green guy made the final cut. Now, finally, "Civil War" writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely set the record straight in a conversation with The Huffington Post.
"We can clean that up real quickly," said Markus. "Mark Ruffalo shot no scenes. We talked about having Bruce Banner at the very end of the film, and it just, again, seemed like we’re sticking people in just to stick them in. He has clearly gone somewhere at the end of 'Ultron,' and that's a story. Don't blow it off and put it in a little tiny chunk just to put in a little extra filigree on our movie. That's a story."
McFeely added, "There was a draft with a stinger of him in it. But that was long ago, and reports of him actually filming stuff -- the unit publicist on the movies [John M. Pisani] looks a lot like Ruffalo, so when people say, 'Hey, he’s in Berlin dancing with Anthony Mackie,' it’s John Pisani. It’s not Ruffalo."
McFeely said characters were chosen for the movie to have "maximum impact." Because of this, Wasp also got cut from the final film.
"We certainly had a draft where both Ant-Man and Wasp were recruited, but when they come in, that's a lot of story there, and you can't just let Paul Rudd do what we need him to do in that section, which is look at it from wide open innocent eyes and appreciate the Avengers from the outside, which gets you comic relief beat after beat after beat. Spider-Man's similar, right? Because these people have an investment, and these two new people don't. It’s not that Wasp wouldn't also have that opinion maybe, but we have not seen her be a hero at all, so that's an example of where we think we'd be drinking someone's milkshake," said McFeely.
"Let's let the 'Ant-Man' franchise show her come to her full fruition as opposed to just doing it offscreen," he added.
So yeah, the writers ended up swatting Wasp and smashing our dreams of Hulk, but at least they had a good reason. Still, we wouldn't have minded if, to paraphrase McFeely, they drank the hell out of that milkshake.
Drink it up, guys. Drink. It. Up.
"Captain America: Civil War" hits theaters May 6.
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