Where does Louis Leterrier’s 2008 film The Incredible Hulk fit in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe? Fans love to debate this, because major changes took place between Leterrier’s effort and the reintroduction of the Hulk into Joss Whedon’s Avengers film. But there are so many interesting pieces at play in The Incredible Hulk, you can understand why Marvel would be looking to carry a few of them over to the new MCU films, and we’re just now learning about a massive one that almost had a cameo in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Tim Roth has been doing press on behalf of the spectacular Civil Rights drama Selma, which casts the English actor and director as Alabama governor George Wallace. During a conversation with Crave Online, the actor was asked about his part in The Incredible Hulk, and whether he gets asked about it at all. Roth admits that it comes up often, and that he meets fans all of the time. Then he explains that his villainous creature, The Abomination, almost returned for Joss Whedon’s Age of Ultron… or, it at least was discussed. Roth says:
They were going to do it. They did do that. They were thinking, in The Avengers 2 or something. There was a movie we could do that at one point, but way back when. It just kind of got swept under the carpet I guess. That would be hilarious."
Tim Roth played Emil Blonsky in Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk, a soldier hired by General Ross (William Hurt) to detain Bruce Banner and his alter ego, The Hulk. Over the course of the film, Blonsky receives his own dose of gamma-radiated blood and morphs into The Abomination – which leads to this epic throwdown in Harlem.
By the end of that film, Blonsky is defeated (spoiler). He's locked away, presumably so that he can be used again in future films. But his fate, ultimately, is one of many loose threads left dangling by The Incredible Hulk, which introduced Tim Blake Nelson’s Dr. Samuel Sterns, a possible new villain. There likely were big plans in place for this Hulk, seeing as how Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) appeared in a post-credits sequence to recruit the angry monster for the Avengers Initiative.
But lackluster reactions (and box office) led to continuity changes, and we now have Mark Ruffalo in the role. It’s interesting to hear that Tim Roth was at least involved in conversation to bring The Abomination back. Maybe if Hulk ever gets his own solo movie, this can happen. Only time will tell.
