Mark Ruffalo Defends Marvel Volume Says Star Wars Is Repetitive

MCU star Mark Ruffalo, who will reprise his long-running role as the Hulk for Disney+ series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” stood by the ever-expanding Marvel franchise. “It’s not something I worry about,” Ruffalo told Metro.co.uk over whether there is an excess of Marvel content. “I understand that these things run their course and then something else comes along. But the thing Marvel has done well is that, inside the MCU, just as they do with comic books, they let a director or an actor sort of recreate each piece to their own style, their likeness. Marvel generally lets them bring that to the material.” Yet Ruffalo did call out another franchise IP that he believes hasn’t followed Marvel’s success of keeping it fresh. “If you watch a ‘Star Wars,’ you’re pretty much going to get the same version of ‘Star Wars’ each time,” Ruffalo dished. “It might have a little bit of humor. It might have a little bit of different animation. But you’re always, really, in that same kind of world. But with Marvel you can have a whole different feeling, even within the Marvel Universe.”

Writer-director Taika Waititi most recently helmed Marvel installment “Thor: Love and Thunder” and has also been tapped to lead an upcoming “Star Wars” film. Waititi openly addressed the fact that the “Star Wars” universe needs to expand beyond the original core characters, otherwise the franchise will “feel like it’s a very small story.” “I tend to go into these things as open-minded as possible,” Waititi exclusively told IndieWire about joining a franchise like “Star Wars” or Marvel. “Not to speak for anyone else, but in this case, I just made sure I wasn’t going in with stories of all these past experiences in my head that could form my relationship with a studio.” He continued, “If I’d done that on ‘Ragnarok,’ it probably would’ve been a disaster. I went in ready to collaborate and willing to learn something. When I first went in, I wasn’t really sure it would feel like one of my films by the end and I was willing to accept that because it’s a studio film. I obviously didn’t invent Thor or make the first two films. I’m not going to just assume that I’m going to rearrange the system, shake it up, teach them how to make movies. And that’s why it worked out. If you assume you’re going to get screwed over, it’s going to sour the relationship from the start.” And Waititi credited Marvel president Kevin Feige for forging ahead with new ideas nonstop. “Once you get comfortable, that whole section of the film you love so much gets cut out and you have to go in a different direction,” Waititi revealed. “That’s the best thing about working with Marvel. They’re always challenging you in that way.”