Marvel Reveals Why Planet Hulk Was Added Into ‘Thor: Ragnarok’

Fans have met plenty of heroes in the MCU, but no one can get enough of its biggest, greenest member. The Incredible Hulk was brought into Marvel back in 2008 before Mark Ruffalo took over the beast in The Avengers. Next month, fans will catch up with the hero once more in Thor: Ragnarok, and the film’s crew is finally addressing why Marvel’s famous Planet Hulk series was brought into the sequel.

During a recent press junket, Marvel Studios’ head Kevin Feige chatted with Screen Rant about the Hulk’s part in Thor: Ragnarok. When the producer was asked why Planet Hulk got chosen, and Feige said his team made the decision after thinking about how lonely Thor might be when he’s disconnected from Earth these days.

“We were thinking about what other Marvel players to bring into Thor’s story, which was important to us, it was important to Chris [Hemsworth], he had looked and seen Captain America get Black Widow and Iron Man, and all of these other players and he goes, ‘Mate, who’s coming into my movies?’” Feige explained.

“As we were thinking about that, number one, with Thor, more so than any of the other players, he’s got an amazing cast of characters in his books. So certainly, one of your questions about Sif, I’m jokingly pushing aside, but really it was we wanted to see Valkyrie in this movie. We wanted to introduce Hela in this movie, and there’s Balder and there’s Beta Ray Bill and there’s still people we haven’t done yet because he’s got such a great cast of characters. But in terms of other Marvel characters we kept thinking about how fun it would be if we took our two most heroic, most powerful characters, Thor and Hulk.”

Wrapping up, Feige said: “[We wanted to] pit them against each other and but also play the humor and the fish out of water humor between Thor and Banner. And that lead us to, maybe that plane at the end of Ultron did go into space, and maybe this is a chance to see Gladiator Hulk.”

As fans will remember, the last time Hulk was shown in the MCU was back during Avengers: Age of Ultron. Audiences watched as the green giant piloted a cloaked SHIELD aircraft into the sky, leaving many to wonder where Bruce Banner was headed. Feige did say the ending wasn’t made with the intent of sending the Hulk into space, but Marvel Studios saw the hero’s leave from Earth as a chance to help the Hulk start anew with Thor.

Thor: Ragnarok currently has a 4.19 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating, making it the second most anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com Users. Let us know how excited you are about Thor: Ragnarok by giving the movie your own personal ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating below.

Thor: Ragnarok opens in theaters on November 2, 2017.