Ahh, the rumors, the rumors. What’s a good day without more rumors.
Buried at the bottom of the aforementioned L.A. Times piece about “Thor” and “Captain America” going conversion 3D, is a little mention that a Marvel insider says a “name” actor will be announced at Comic Con for The Hulk/Bruce Banner role in “The Avengers” now that Ed Norton was officially bounced out of that role.
The L.A. Times says this Marvel contact would not confirm or deny rumors of Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Nathan Fillion and David Tennant being up for the Hulk role in the ‘Avengers’ picture that will be directed by Joss Whedon.
But are these new names up for the role or just old recycled rumors? Phoenix is a name we’ve already heard, allegedly he’s been offered the role and if that’s true, we can’t really see him accepting. But the others are new, right?.
No, not really. Adrien Brody was rumored for the part in 2007, and this is of course long before Ed Norton even took the role, so this is probably the Times throwing out old names at the contact. The Fillion rumor evidently comes from a tweet from six days ago where he posted an old “Firefly” image with Whedon with the caption, “Together. Again,” and then of course that set off some rampant and wild speculation.
Fillion’s long been rumored to play “Ant-Man” (the always amusing ComicBook Fan resources always puts him down in their official cast-list) as well and is a fan favorite in general, but there’s never been any official word from Edgar Wright, and trust us, he’s been asked about it several times…
The David Tennant rumor comes from…, we have no clue, but others are picking up on this as well and his name has been suggested (along with Fillion), by several movie sites, but that’s hardly much of a rumor.
This is pretty much the L.A. Times rounding up conjecture and posting it as an article and dummies like us are giving it more play then it deserves, but just fyi, we suppose, in case these names do come up again. We don’t particularly expect any of these actors to come up in connection with the role, but who knows. Marvel does love their fan suggestions and Fillion for one is a name that keeps popping up, so maybe they’ve been listening.
What does appear to be the only potential (and feasible) bit of semi-concrete-ish news is that a new actor will be named for the role of Bruce Banner, next week at Comic Con. “The Avengers” is scheduled to hit theaters May 4, 2012 (do they really need to announce someone that soon?)