How ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ turned Harrison Ford into the Red Hulk (exclusive)

When you introduce someone like Red Hulk to the mix of your Captain America movie, you must ask yourself: How can our hero hold his own? Marvel fans saw how Tony Stark (in a massive Hulkbuster mech-suit) and even a literal god like Thor struggled in hand-to-hand combat with Bruce Banner’s aggressive alter-ego. So, how can Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), the new Cap who prides himself on being a non-super-powered superhero, not become instant roadkill?

“As soon as we decided this was the story we were going to tell, we realized there was a big hurdle,” Nate Moore, a longtime producer on Captain America: Brave New World, acknowledges. Dan Cox, visual effects supervisor from Weta, points out the obvious: “He takes a punch, his head’s going to go flying.”

The answer? Gotta love a Wakanda-made vibranium wingsuit. That will somewhat level the playing field. “I say ‘somewhat’ because it’s a Red Hulk,” Moore notes. “What are you going to do? We’re very conscious of not having the movie feel disingenuous. So, giving Sam equipment to survive is different than giving Sam equipment to succeed.”

This was just one of the big questions the Marvel team had to answer when adding the Red Hulk to their sprawling roster of comic book characters. And what a big character he is. Along with Moore and Cox, Ryan Meinerding (head of visual development at Marvel Studios) breaks down the creation of this (ahem) hulking, out-of-control brute in next year’s Captain America: Brave New World.

“The Red Hulk in the comics is not entirely a monster. He has more of a human personality to him,” Meinerding says. “So, we’re trying to create something that felt a little bit more human to match Ross’s personality.”

Captain America: Brave New World (in theaters Feb. 14) sees Sam and his right-hand wingman Joaquin (Danny Ramirez), stepping up as the new Falcon, deal with a conspiracy involving brainwashed Super Soldiers (specifically their pal Isaiah Bradley, played by Carl Lumbly from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and a dastardly plot that could reshape the world. Somewhere along the way, newly elected President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford), taking inspiration from the character’s arc in the comics, will be reshaped into the Red Hulk. And Sam has the unenviable job of subduing him without dying in the process or, you know, killing a sitting U.S. president.

Moore confirms Marvel discussed Red Hulk plans with original Ross actor William Hurt, who played the role across five movies, starting with The Incredible Hulk (2008). “He was very excited to come back, to be quite frank,” the producer says. The actor died at the age of 71 in March 2022, which forced the team to reevaluate. “When he passed, it was a surprise,” Moore continues. “You figure out if it’s worth proceeding with the story you have or trying something else. It just so happened that Harrison Ford reached out to [Marvel Studios President] Kevin Feige about potentially playing in the Marvel sandbox.”

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Moore was, understandably, a bit floored initially that the acerbic actor of Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Blade Runner fame had any interest in Marvel, let alone taking over a role from a late Oscar winner. “We didn’t assume anybody would be game,” Moore says. “Harrison saw it, I think, as an opportunity both to honor William’s work and to continue that character arc, which Harrison thought was really interesting in the other movies.”

Red Hulk is a character the Marvel team tracked for some time before landing on Captain America: Brave New World as the film that would bring him into the MCU. It began with The Incredible Hulk, in which Ross, then a general in the U.S. military, spent all his time chasing Bruce Banner (then played by Edward Norton). For Ross to now become the very thing he once loathed felt like meaty material. “What we liked was this notion of a man who is trying to do the best he can but can’t quite outrun the demons of his past,” Moore explains. “Turning a guy who hunted Hulks into a Hulk himself makes him more than an antagonist; it makes him a tragic character.”

It also served the narrative between Sam and Ross. The president initially welcomes the new Captain America to the White House with the task of reconstituting the Avengers, but they later find themselves at odds both politically and morally when this global conspiracy kicks off. Moore points to the Secret Empire comic book arc. “It’s the notion of a guy who believes an ideal, realizing that ideal is not always held up to the same standards by other people, and feeling really betrayed by where the American government had gone,” he says. While Brave New World is not adapting Secret Empire, Moore recognizes the intrigue in Sam sparring with the president while cloaked in the colors of the American flag. “The Red Hulk is the cherry on the sundae because then you get to have a physical manifestation of that,” Moore adds.

According to Cox and Meinerding, director Julius Onah didn’t want Red Hulk to be a visual copy of Hulk prime. “It wasn’t just a color change,” Cox says. “It’s a whole different character.” Meinerding and his team, who typically explore countless different designs, dug into the specificities of silhouette, physique, facial expressions, color shades, and even haircuts from the comics. There was even potential for a mustache with Ross’ transformation. “They do exist, yes,” Meinerding says of those early concept art designs. “We’re trying to make him stand a little bit more upright and have a bigger, broader chest and feel a little bit different and maybe slightly more intimidating through his more athletic posture.”

“There’s the anger and everything that goes into that, but Julius wanted him to feel more tactical than the green Hulk,” Cox elaborates. “It’s Thaddeus Ross, right? He’s military, he is trained. Julius gave us the reference of a bear in terms of how he poses himself on all fours. Even during the action sequences, it’s extremely aggressive in a different way in terms of slightly more methodical actions.”

Once Marvel formally cast Ford as Ross, Meinerding and Cox infused the Red Hulk design with the actor’s likeness. “He’s got one of the most identifiable faces in cinema history,” Meinerding says — meaning, getting that likeness wasn’t hard. Cox’s team at Weta also scanned Ford’s face to enhance the visual effects. “Those are Harrison’s actual eyes in there; you’d be surprised how important that actually is,” Cox says. “The nose is Harrison’s. The mouth is predominantly Harrison’s. It’s just scaled proportions.” They even got the 82-year-old Ford in a motion-capture suit. “Lemme tell you, he was all in that morning,” Cox recalls. “The last thing you want is to be the person that hurts Harrison Ford. At one point, I needed him landing and thought we can have the stunt guy do it. He’s like, ‘No, no, no! I’ll do it.’ I put up an apple box that’s about two feet off the ground. I’m like, ‘I need you to jump down onto the ground and land as a Hulk.’ He did it about a dozen times, and every single time, I held my breath, but he went all in.”

In choreographing the big face-off between Red Hulk and Sam, which contains more than 300 VFX shots and takes place during the climactic third act, Weta went to the Washington, D.C. set to plot it out. The sequence isn’t confined to one setting, either. It tracks across multiple different environments. Again, they had to think, how do we keep Sam alive, even with the benefit of Wakandan tech? It came down to Sam’s new wingsuit and, of course, his Cap shield.

“We had to choreograph the fight sequences to allow him to constantly be using those as, basically, two additional limbs so that he can take the Hulk punches from time to time, but he does everything he can to avoid those anyway,” Cox says. “You’ll see it in the action sequence; it’s not fun when he gets hit.”