10 Hit Movies That Somehow Never Got A Sequel

5. The Incredible Hulk

Con Air Cyrus The Virus
Marvel Studios

It seems at this point that The Incredible Hulk will be consigned to history as a footnote in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In fact, if it wasn't for the return of William Hurt's Thaddeus Ross in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it was beginning to look like the movie had been swept under the rug entirely bar a fleeting reference to Bruce Banner 'breaking Harlem' in the first Avengers.

Released just six weeks after Iron Man signaled the start of Marvel Studios' ambitious plans to build a shared universe of movies, a post-credits cameo by Robert Downey Jr. is pretty much all of the connective tissue that The Incredible Hulk provides to the larger story, which is probably for the best given the lukewarm critical reception and rumors of star Edward Norton proving difficult to work with.

Louis Letterier's comic book blockbuster earned $263.4m at the box office, which was well short of what the studio was hoping for, and any plans for a sequel were abandoned. Of course, Mark Ruffalo went on to replace Norton as the title character and plays a pivotal role in The Avengers movies and the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok.

Ruffalo has gone on record many times saying that another standalone Hulk movie won't happen because Universal own the theatrical distribution rights to the character, leaving The Incredible Hulk as the only definitive 'one and done' entry in the MCU so far.

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