HULK: Mark Ruffalo Says Universal Still Owns Rights to Solo Films

Rumors and hopes of a solo Hulk film have been floating since Mark Ruffalo's appearance as the Hulk in the first Avengers. Having been the lead character in two films (one in the Marvel cineverse), it seem odd that we've yet to see a new solo film. Collider interviewed Ruffalo while he was promoting the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron, and learned a possible reason why.

Ruffalo on Hulk solo films:

As far as a Hulk movie, a standalone Hulk movie, Marvel doesn’t really have the rights to that yet. That’s still Universal’s property, so there’s that issue. That’s a big impediment to moving forward with that. Now I don’t think that’s insurmountable, by the way, but I don’t know where it’s going from here for me.

Because Universal has distribution rights for a solo Hulk film, that puts the film in direct conflict with Disney, Marvel's parent company. But if an elaborate deal can be made with Sony around Spider-Man, it seems like co-distribution would not be impossible. With a solo film likely to make hundreds of millions, I think the biggest/real barrier is Marvel's slate of scheduled movies, which has two films in 2016, three in 2017, three in 2018, and at least two in 2019.