The Incredible Hulk Smashes His Way Onto Disney+

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the biggest franchises in all of cinema history. Currently having 32 films and having grossed nearly $30 Billion over its 15 years existence. The franchise started all the way back in 2008 when Robert Downy Jr. starred as Iron Man, kicking off the first phase. However, not all of the first phase has been owned by Marvel, until now.



The 2008 film The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton was the second film in the MCU. Despite the role later being recast and the film being distributed by Universal instead of Paramount (Marvel’s main distributor at the time), it was still meant to all be connected. For the past 15 years, the rights have been held at Universal ever since its premiere date of June 13th, 2008.

But now the rights to the film have finally reverted back to Marvel, and for the first time, the film will be streaming on Disney+ alongside the rest of phase one. Now any Marvel fan will be able to fully binge-watch the full story leading up to the first Avengers film from 2012.

Smashing news. 👊💥 Marvel Studios' The Incredible #Hulk arrives tomorrow on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/r5rfWH4COM

— Disney+ (@DisneyPlus) June 15, 2023

For some time, the rights to develop a film based on The Incredible Hulk have been held in limbo due to pre-existing agreements between Marvel and NBCUniversal. The Hulk, however, was able to appear as a secondary character in films such as The Avengers and Thor: Ragnarock. 



Actor Mark Ruffalo, the current actor playing the mean green fighting machine after Edward Norton left, has said that he wishes to do a Professor Hulk film. However, the She-Hulk series on Disney+ did hint at a Planet Hulk story that happened during the show, so that may also be a possible story.

Even so, we still don’t know the full extent of the Hulk license, similar to the apparent legal trouble surrounding Namor: the Sub-Mariner. Hopefully, things can be figured out.

Source: Variety