Captain America: Brave New World’s Red Hulk has been on the cards for years, but has he been introduced too late for it to matter?
Captain America: Brave New World is an excellent representation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Avengers Endgame. A soft sequel to a Disney+ show (and through Red Hulk’s appearance an even softer sequel to a much older superhero film) that went through reshoots all to receive middling reviews. Interestingly, despite the name, the film may exist just before the next shift in superhero media.
The real Brave New World:
In July James Gunn’s DCU sees its first film with Superman, and Marvel puts out The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Both films parallel one another, with colourful aesthetics, emphasis on comic inspirations, and reverence in the marketing for their IPs. If this angle is successful, it could lead to a tonal shift for future films, towards a brighter, campier, era.
Notably, both studios have gone head to head with seemingly parallel releases before, most clearly in 2016 with Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, two films where main attraction was watching the figureheads of each universe fight amongst themselves. The fallout of 2016s superhero films was not exactly simple though. Warner Bros. would attempt to change the direction of future DC films due to BvS’ lukewarm reception (not to mention Suicide Squad’s less than lukewarm reception), and Civil War did not seem to lead to a clear change in tone for the franchise. That said, these films were the first superhero flicks to feature and emphasise character crossovers outside of straight up team-up films, a trend which Marvel in particular has leaned heavily into since.
The new era boldly asks: Remember the films we used to make?
The most recent signpost of a new superhero era was Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021, a film that feels closer to Martin Scorsese’s theme park comparison than ever, and which relied on cameos from older iterations of the franchise for marketing. Brave New World does the same, oddly serving as a sequel to 2008s’ The Incredible Hulk, with Harrison Ford as a recast Thunderbolt Ross finally assuming the mantle of Red Hulk, and Tim Blake Nelson returning as The Leader. It feels important to note that, despite the superficial similarity between Brave New World and No Way Home, the latter sees the return of well remembered actors for one of the most iconic characters in entertainment history, and (respectfully), who remembers The Incredible Hulk’s Leader?
Red Hulk is of course the much larger selling point of the film, not only being played by a famous actor, and being a prominent part of the marketing, but also being an easy idea for movie-goers less versed in superhero lore to grasp: in this movie Captain America fights the Hulk but red. That said, it still lacks that Tobey Maguire oomph.
Both Superman and Fantastic Four seem to be deviating from current norms of the genre, however. Instead of the spectacle of Scorsese’s theme park ride label, both films are selling themselves on more emotional concepts (hope and family respectively), and importantly, neither film is selling itself on cameos or call-backs. Red Hulk is introduced via the springboard of prior context, yet Superman is essentially a reboot of the entire DC franchise and Fantastic Four takes place in a whole other universe.
There’s still more cameos to come.
With all of this said, we are not out of the cameo era yet. Robert Downey Jr is returning to the MCU as Doctor Doom, and it feels hard to imagine that Hollywood will abandon the use of nostalgia anytime soon. But the studios are now selling their films in an interesting way: as something new. We will have to wait until July to see if they pull through with this promise.
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