10 Epic Movie Villains That Were Teased (But Never Happened)

4. The Leader - The Incredible Hulk

The Tease

2008's The Incredible Hulk is the black sheep of the MCU for several reasons beyond Edward Norton's one-off performance as Bruce Banner, not least that it blatantly teased a sequel villain who never materialised.

Throughout the film, Banner has online correspondence with the mysterious Mr. Blue, who eventually turns out to be Dr. Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), a cellular biologist with hopes of providing an antidote to Banner's condition.

However, Sterns finds himself forced to transform Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) into the Abomination, the violent result of which causes Sterns to get some of Banner's infected blood in his own wounded forehead. The last time we see Sterns, he's smiling like a maniac while his head pulsates.

This was clearly setting up Sterns to become his hyper-intelligent comic book villain moniker The Leader, who would presumably oppose The Hulk in the proposed follow-up.

Why It Never Happened

The Incredible Hulk's mediocre box office performance quickly cooled Kevin Feige's interest in a sequel, and he instead opted to keep the character a feature attraction in the MCU's Avengers movies, alongside a guest appearance in Thor: Ragnarok.

This is compounded by the fact that The Hulk's solo movie rights still reside at Universal, presenting a major commercial obstacle for Marvel Studios when it comes to both box office revenue and merchandise profits.

Though The Leader definitely could've shown up as a minor villain in an Avengers movie, it's honestly tough to imagine where he would've slotted in, so this was probably for the best.

Still, it's a shame to see an actor of Tim Blake Nelson's caliber wasted like this, and it's not even the only time it's happened to him in a superhero movie.

For 2015's Fantastic Four reboot, Nelson signed on to play Harvey Elder aka Mole Man, only for this aspect to be entirely eliminated in re-shoots, complete with a name change.