Between Hulu and Disney Plus, Disney does their best at making Marvel film adaptations available to stream. Unfortunately, it looks like Disney is removing one classic Marvel movie from the streaming service altogether.
Of course, fans will recall that there was once a time when Disney didn’t own Marvel. This means that many film adaptations prior to the Marvel Cinematic Universe are owned by other companies. As such, rights can be complicated, and it looks like that could’ve been the case with this particular Marvel movie.
As shared in a recent press release, Hulu will be removing the 2003 movie Hulk from their service on September 30. Ang Lee’s adaptation of the popular Incredible Hulk comics received mixed reviews from critics and fans in the comic book community. Especially for a film that was released before the MCU made comic book movies more popular than ever.
There were plans for a Hulk sequel but those plans were ultimately cancelled and Marvel devised a new Hulk adaptation as part of the MCU in 2008 in The Incredible Hulk. Edward Norton starred in that particular film, taking over for Eric Bana who played the previous iteration of Bruce Banner in the 2003 movie. Funnily enough, Norton was recast himself in the same continuity by actor Mark Ruffalo who has played Bruce Banner, aka Hulk, ever since.
Interestingly, the 2008 film did end up on Disney Plus quite recently. The film’s distribution rights are owned by Universal, and so it’s very possible that the 2003 film could eventually end up on the same service. For now, it’s unknown where it’ll end up next, especially with the movie leaving Hulu. But as Disney continues to use Hulk as part of their films and shows – it wouldn’t be surprising to see them do their best to bring over all of the different versions to Disney Plus sooner than later.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional Marvel updates as we have them.