Every Time Mark Ruffalo Let An MCU Spoiler Slip

Mark Ruffalo isn't really that different from Bruce Banner. Both of them are erudite men with a thirst for justice and a rock-solid belief in doing the right thing. They're cerebral, serious, and keep their more flighty teammates (or in Ruffalo's case, costars) tethered to the topic at hand. Both have a more, shall we say, passionate side that they unleash — one through smashing Asgardian trickster gods into the linoleum, the other by using his celebrity to further the goals of many worthy causes. It's no wonder, really, that after two infamously miscalculated attempts to put the Hulk on screen, Ruffalo has been the one to get it right: he and the character have quite a lot in common.

But if there's one thing that sets Ruffalo apart from Banner, it is his propensity for spoilers. Dude means well, but in his enthusiasm for the MCU, he tends to give the game away. And we're not talking about a one or two-time thing — it's a bona fide pattern that ranges across social media networks, interviews, and premieres. Here's a handy guide to each and every time Mark Ruffalo went from "charming and articulate" to "total blabbermouth," including one that may or may not have been a set-up.

Maybe you missed it but do you remember the time Mark Ruffalo spoiled the shocking ending of Avengers: Infinity War? We're not talking about something so minor as "Red Skull comes back," nor even "Thor crafts a new hammer in an awesome space forge run by Game of Thrones' own Peter Dinklage." No, Ruffalo did not spoil by halves. He gave away the astonishing fact of Thanos' slaughter of half of all life in the universe. He let loose, in fact, the spoiler equivalent of the infamous snap itself.

It happened during a Good Morning America interview alongside Don Cheadle. At first, he merely approached the spoiler, teasing, when asked if Thor and the Hulk save Asgard in Thor: Ragnarok, that "like every other Marvel superhero movie, it doesn't end well for the superheroes." He could have stopped there and still done damage. But instead, he followed it up with a an absolute firecracker of a sentence: "Wait until you see the next one. Ha — everybody dies!" Poor, suffering Don Cheadle's eyes widened as he responded with "Dude!" and threw his hands up. But what was done was done. Ruffalo went on to ask for a rewind, but the internet never forgets.

Every other moment on this list happened within the context of an interview, and came from Ruffalo's own lips. It's the easiest way to spoil something, after all — you talk to someone, you're excited to promote your work, the whole world is waiting on tenterhooks to see what happens next... sometimes you say more than you should. The stakes are higher when you play one of the most iconic characters of an already legendary film franchise, of course, but the general principle remains. From war to friendships, loose talk is so dangerous because it's so easy.

That's what makes this spoiler so remarkable — it wasn't a slip of the tongue, but a slip of technology. In October 2017, Ruffalo turned on Instagram's livestream function during the Thor: Ragnarok premiere to include fans in the real-time excitement. What a cool way to appreciate those fans so committed to the franchise that they tune in for premieres, right? Unfortunately, he then put his phone in his pocket and forgot to close the app, ultimately streaming the audio of a good portion of the movie's early scenes. Happily, Ragnarok's spectacular visuals still enticed anyone who might have caught the broadcast to come see the real thing, but it remains one heck of a blunder. Let's be real, though — haven't we all left an app or two running before? This is one spoiler that's hard not to forgive.

The entire world held its breath as Avengers: Endgame approached. Billboards heralded its arrival in every major city. Everyone has a friend or two who spent the previous month revisiting the decade-spanning slate of Marvel movies. Fans congregated online to discuss the odds of Thanos' defeat, the return of beloved characters, and whether or not Cap would finally call the Avengers to assemble. As it currently racks up millions by the second during its stay in theaters, one thing has been made very clear: every single thing that happens in Endgame matters to someone. There is no such thing as a small spoiler within the context of this kind of culture-defining phenomenon.

So Ruffalo revealing the endpoint of a long-developed relationship at the core of the series is kind of a big deal. On April 8th, Ruffalo jokingly referred to the fact that he shot multiple different endings to avoid being able to spoil any one aspect of the film during an interview with E! News. But he didn't stop there. He proceeded to point to Chris Evans and say, "He gets married in this!" As we all know now — though Ruffalo apparently did not at the time — that is, in fact, Cap's ultimate fate and the final scene of the film. Evans put it best in his response to this bombshell: Ruffalo "leaks like a bodily function."

Compared to those weapons-grade spoilers, this one is rather tame. Or rather, it would be... if the MCU weren't the most emotionally-loaded, financially-huge, and imagination-consuming game in town. Luckily, this little moment of indiscretion ended up obscured by time and the split nature of the final two Thanos-centric movies.

In October 2017, Ruffalo mentioned filming scenes with Rocket Raccoon in an interview with USA Today. "It's a very funny relationship that the two of them have," he said. "First of all, it's the biggest superhero and the smallest. Just keeping them in a frame together is a feat and hilarious in itself." True. But after Infinity War dawned and no scenes between the Hulk and Rocket took place, this detail became a spoiler. Suddenly, we knew that Hulk and Rocket were going to team up in an effort to take Thanos down, and moreover, that Banner would be able to access the dormant giant within himself anew after struggling to do so during Infinity War. A retroactive spoiler, but a spoiler regardless.

Here's a complicated one for the Mark Ruffalo, Legendary Big Mouth annals. In October 2017, Ruffalo mused on the changing nature of the Hulk to CinemaBlend, discussing especially the curious nature of the two personalities that share Banner's body. Thor: Ragnarok was, in fact, the beginning of a three-movie arc for Hulk, the result of Kevin Feige asking Ruffalo where he might take the character if he had to power to steer his long-term MCU destiny. "I said, 'I think it should be this, this, this, and this and this, and ends up like this.' And he's like, 'I love that. Why don't we do that in the next three movies?'"

At first, this doesn't seem like a huge spoiler. But it caused a certain amount of discussion that now seems shockingly prescient. No, Ruffalo didn't come out and discuss the Hulk's newfound maturity in Endgame, nor any details about his relationships or powers. But in discussing a three-film arc, he made it clear that he was going to survive for, well, three movies — not a guarantee at all, given the nature of the Thanos plot. Moreover, he revealed that Hulk was going to gain more speaking lines. Few could have predicted exactly how literal that would end up being, but still — he said it, and it turned out to be true, and that's the essence of a spoiler.

Ruffalo has let the flerken out of the bag so many times now that one can only guess at the seriousness of the tongue-lashings he's probably gotten at Marvel's hands. One moment, however, just might have been condoned by the studio itself — possibly even coordinated by it. Ruffalo appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in October 2018, where he and Fallon riffed on his well-established nature as a blabbermouth. Both hyped the segment up as containing a major spoiler on Twitter, and after it aired, directors Joe and Anthony Russo jokingly told Ruffalo he was fired.

So what was the big reveal? Well... it wasn't really a reveal at all, actually. Ruffalo seemed to utter the title, but The Tonight Show bleeped it out, to the chagrin of fans everywhere. Online sleuths set to decoding the audio and trying to lip-read, but the results were inconclusive until Marvel formally announced it to be Avengers: Endgame. So was it a real slip of the tongue? Marvel will never tell, but the silliness of the Twitter repartee seems to imply a certain level of foreknowledge. Only one truth is clear: Mark Ruffalo is probably a little relieved to not be in the hot seat any longer.