There are some really exciting rumors floating around the Marvel camp in regards to what’s going to be happening with Hulk and with Phase 3.
What we already know:
Kevin Feige has already stated that Ant-Man and Doctor Strange are part of Phase 3. Ant-Man already has a film ready to come out after the Thanos/Cosmic heavy Phase 2 ends. Strange I think will be a cool character to flesh out as well. Whether or not he can hold up his own movie or not is another story.
What we are speculating:
The folks over at Latino-Review, who often nail their super early Marvel movie rumors, came out yesterday with a story that not only will the Hulk be getting his own film AGAIN in Phase 3, but he will be the lynchpin of the whole series of films! The rumor is that because of Hulk’s extremely violent and dangerous actions (which I’m assuming will take place in Avengers 2), The Illuminati (group of marvel heroes) decide that the safest bet is to send Hulk into space, which will lead to the Phase 3 Hulk film based on Planet Hulk. Planet Hulk is just about the only interesting thing you could do with him at this point, so if he were to get a movie, this version of Hulk I think would really lend himself to a film like this. Hulk needs to fight things that are bigger and scarier than him, so him on a planet full of monsters sounds perfect. Also we know that the long in development Hulk TV series has for the most part been shelved. It is my thinking that if the Hulk wasn’t so wildly popular in Avengers, they’d continue with it, but now that people like Hulk so much, they have to give us what we want.
The best part of this in my opinion is that Avengers 3 would largely co-op the World War Hulk storyline, which was also huge and widely popular.
I really hope this happens. I think it would be an awesome followup to Phase 2. I’m sure they wont call the Illuminati, the Illuminati, and I’m sure they’ll be different characters plugged in, but I think this has the potential to be a gigantic success. We know Marvel really plans ahead, so it would totally make sense that they are already working on the Phase 3 stuff. Phase 2, outside of Guardians of the Galaxy, doesn’t really have any real risks associated with it. But I think if that works, then we’ve been more exposed to other planets and the masses would accept a Hulk/Gladiator type movie. Also when you consider there is a Hulk cartoon coming out this fall that has a lot of the Planet Hulk monsters on it, I bet that’s Marvels way of getting the kids used to the idea of the other monsters Hulk fights/allies with.
The only thing I’m thinking is that their World War Hulk storyline might have a little more black and white added to it, in that they might make a villain have more to do with all of it instead of just having Hulk fight all of these good guys. I’ll leave that to the writers though.
Anyway, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and an increased Hulk presence, Marvel will have given me everything I want for a massive Avengers 3. Except for Black Panther.