Mark Ruffalo Says a Solo Hulk Movie "Feels Even Further Away" Than Before

I'll have a review of Spotlight for you later this week, but while star Mark Ruffalo was doing some press for the movie, he spoke with USA Today about the topic everyone seems to ask him these days: what's the deal with a standalone Hulk movie? Well, he said it's "not any closer" to happening, and then elaborated a bit:

"Actually, it feels even further away. It's not Marvel's property, it's Universal's property. I don't know. It seems really problematic."

That would be a big problem, if it were true. But as we found out a few months ago, Marvel actually does own the production rights to a solo Hulk movie, so it is that company's property. The only thing Universal has is the right of first refusal for the distribution rights to any solo Hulk film. What that means is that if Marvel Studios made a Hulk film, Universal could choose to distribute it and split some of the money with Marvel in the process. They could also choose to decline and give the distribution rights back to Marvel for free, but since that's incredibly unlikely, there'd probably be some sort of trade involved with Universal and Marvel's parent company, Disney. Either way, Marvel Studios produced Iron Man, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Iron Man 2 but those movies were distributed by Paramount; while a scenario in which Universal distributed a solo Hulk movie wouldn't be ideal for Marvel Studios, the company has clearly shown a willingness to collaborate where necessary to get things done. (Another example: the Sony/Spider-Man deal.)

Ruffalo is next slated to appear as the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok, and he spoke briefly about that as well:

"I don't know what the story is yet, but it'll be (Loki) and Thor, and then I'll be in there here and there. But I don't know any of the particulars quite yet. I've talked to Taika a little bit and I like where it's headed. ... Chris (Hemsworth) and I have a really good time together, we goof off and play around when Tom Hiddleston is around. So it'll be a lot of funny back-and-forth, especially with Taika, he does that really well. It'll have that kind of antagonistic Odd Couple-thing going on."

I know a lot of people (Ruffalo included) want to see the Hulk have adventures in space in his own movie, but Kevin Feige knows that the character works best in smaller doses right now. There's a reason there's a ton of goodwill toward the character that's been built up since 2008's The Incredible Hulk, and I'm guessing some of that has to do with the fact that we haven't had a full-length Hulk movie disappoint us with Ruffalo in the lead. We'll see how long the studio takes to eventually make a solo film, but in the meantime, I'm totally fine with seeing him work as a sidekick type of character. What do you all think?