Corona | Coming Attractions

Today is the day that Superbowl Sunday happened, and it gave the online movie news community a chance to grab and post all those new movie commercials for 2013 shows. Me, I figure if you want to watch the marketing for movies, you either saw it during the game or you know about this site called YouTube (which has all the commercials up about 15 seconds after they're broadcast.)

Latino Review is the only site that said, screw that, let's give the Internet what it really needs: juicy insider movie news. And that's what El Mayimbe did, breaking a sizeable bit of news about what Marvel supposedly has planned for the Hulk in The Avengers 2 and The Avengers 3 movies -- as well as plans for a new stand-alone Hulk movie that's based on a popular Hulk comic book storyline, namely Planet Hulk.

Speculation that there could be a Planet Hulk movie started shortly after the world saw how awesome Joss Whedon's idea for the Hulk and his human alter-ego were in the first Avengers film. For those not in the know, Planet Hulk was a 12-issue story arc that was published by Marvel Comics about five years ago. Conceived by writer Greg Pak, it saw a group of Marvel heroes (including Iron Man) vote to send the Hulk away from Earth on a spaceship so he wouldn't cause all that smashing trouble for us. The Hulk landed on an alien world where he was forced to fight as a gladiator in death matches, and eventually he fought his way all the way to the top and became the Emperor of the planet. Essentially it was the Hulk's version of Conan the barbarian but with Star Wars aliens.

El Mayimbe's source says that Marvel's Phase 3 plans for their movies include launching the Hulk off into space in the third act or in a post-credits sequence in The Avengers 2. After that, a stand-alone Hulk movie would follow at some point post-Avengers 2, and it would feature Mark Ruffalo in the role.

And then this is where it gets really cool: Marvel's long-term plans also include the return of the Hulk back to Earth where he would face down those same Marvel heroes that voted to exile him into outer space. That was the storyline for World War Hulk in the comics, and that would be the same story for The Avengers 3: the Hulk would be the antagonist.

So, what El Mayimbe is telling us is that Marvel Studios prez Kevin Feige has plans for a new Hulk movie and a Hulk-centric Avengers 3 movie. That would push out the gameplan for Marvel's film division into 2017 or 2018 territory.

I don't expect Marvel to confirm any of this, but if they have a Doctor Strange movie ready to announce, that would lend even more to the Hulk being sent into space. Marvel's sorcerer supreme was one of those comic book Illuminati members that agreed to launch the Hulk out into space. Having Strange introduced in the Marvel cinematic universe would give the Hulk another face to punch at in The Avengers 3.