Back when the Planet Hulk movie rumours first arose well over a year ago Avengers Assemble mastermind Joss Whedon was quick to brand them “nonsense”, followed up with a firm denial by star Mark Ruffalo.
Sadly, because armchair insiders think denying a rumour means it’s more likely to be true, we’re back here again with some sites pointing to the inclusion of Sakaaran soldiers in James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy as evidence that Hulk would soon be joining them in the Marvel cosmos.
“I can answer that question very easily: it is absolute, 100% bullshit,” Gunn told The Playlist.
“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 then went on to explain why he picked the Sakaaran, of all the alien races available, for Guardians Of The Galaxy.
“The whole thing is, there’s Sakaraan in the movie. 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. So you can blame search and replace for changing Badoon to Sakaaran and leading to the whole Planet Hulk conspiracy.”
The Badoon – although frequent antagonists of the Guardians Of The Galaxy – first appeared in Silver Surfer #2 (October 1968), so in all likelihood their use would fall under 20th Century Fox’s licenses by merit of being part of the extended Fantastic Four family.
Weirdly though, the Kree first appeared in Fantastic Four #65 (August 1967) and the Skrull first popped up in Fantastic Four #2 (January 1962) so one would have expected their rights to be even more tightly sewn up than the Badoon.
That said, Ronan the Accuser, a Kree, also first appeared in Fantastic Four #65 so maybe like Quicksilver, they can use him, but they have to differentiate him from his Fantastic Four appearances, probably explaining why he looks like an out-an-out supervillain and he’s got no obvious connection to the Kree…
Guardians Of The Galaxy is due in cinemas 31 July 2014. To read our behind the scenes feature, pick up the new SciFiNow, and to find out more about the comics that inspired the film with new digital magazine Uncanny Comics.
