James Gunn Says No Planet Hulk Movie Or Hulk Team-Up With Guardians Of The Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has responded to rumors circulating that Marvel is planning a film based on Planet Hulk, which would see the Hulk teaming up with the Guardians, by calling them "absolute bull****."

Rumors  about a Planet Hulk movie that initially originated on Latino Review have continued to circulate, despite Mark Ruffalo's suggestion that a Planet Hulk movie wouldn't fly because it doesn't feature much of Bruce Banner. The continuing rumors suggest that Ruffalo was skirting the truth, that a film that is essentially Planet Hulk in nature was being planned, but was different enough from the original comic book story (largely through the inclusion of the Guardians) that the studio could plausibly deny the rumors until they were ready to make an announcement.

In an interview with IndieWire, Gunn responded to the rumors pretty candidly.

"I can answer that question very easily: it is absolute, 100% bull****, Gunn said. "It feels like a great relief to finally say this after all the dumb stuff on the Internet. There's not going to be a Planet Hulk movie, there was never going to be a Planet Hulk movie, there was never a plan for the Hulk to team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy – I wouldn't want the Hulk to team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy! And it's all a bunch of complete bullshit."

Gunn goes on to explain the he believes the reason the rumors started to gain traction was because the Sakaarans are present in Guardains of the Galaxy, and Sakaar is the planet that the Hulk lands on in Planet Hulk. But Gunn explained that they're only present as stand-ins for the Badoon.

"The whole thing is, there's Sakaraan in the movie," Gunn said. "And the reason there's Sakaraan in the movie is because there aren't that many alien races in the Marvel Universe, and of those prominent alien races, such as the Kree and the Skrull, I have some very specific ideas for where those races go."

"The reason we picked the Sakaraan is because we don't own Badoon. In the script it originally said Badoon," Gunn said. "So you can blame search and replace for changing Badoon to Sakaaran and leading to the whole Planet Hulk conspiracy."

Guardians of the Galaxy opens in theaters August 1.