Mark Ruffalo says the Hulk will not appear in Avengers: Doomsday, shutting down the assumption that Bruce Banner would be part of Marvel’s next big crossover. He also says he would come back if Marvel Studios keeps finding cool things to do with Hulk.
The timing matters because Ruffalo was missing from the March casting announcement for Avengers: Doomsday, and fans had taken that silence as a sign rather than a clue. On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he joked that they decided it was better to get rid of him than for him to tell the end of the next movie, a line that made the absence sound less like an accident than a choice.
That answer lands on a character who has been tied to Ruffalo since 2012, when he became the face of Bruce Banner and the Hulk for Marvel viewers. Since Avengers: Endgame, he has only turned up in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, What If…?, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which has kept the character around without bringing him back into a live-action film.
The reason the omission stands out is simple: Hulk is one of the MCU’s most recognizable figures, yet Marvel Studios is leaving him out of the sprawling Avengers: Doomsday roster at the very moment it is building toward its next crossover. Ruffalo is set to return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and set photos reportedly showed Bruce Banner on a stretcher, appearing injured or confused after Hulking out, which suggests his next appearance is being used to move the story forward rather than to tee up a quick team-up.
There is also a practical limit underneath the storytelling. Universal holds the distribution rights to solo Hulk films, which has long shaped how Marvel Studios uses the character and helps explain why Ruffalo’s appearances have been scattered across ensemble projects and series instead of centered on a standalone run. That makes his promise to return conditional in the most direct way possible: he will be back only if the material gives Hulk something worth doing.
For now, the larger Marvel map points elsewhere. The Russo Brothers are expected to begin shooting Avengers: Secret Wars in the United Kingdom later this year, and Ruffalo’s absence from Avengers: Doomsday leaves Marvel with one less familiar face in the lineup and one more reason for fans to watch Spider-Man: Brand New Day for clues about where Bruce Banner goes next.
