I know I shouldn't feed into this, but I just can't help myself.
Because Lord knows The Time Traveler's Wife, Hanna, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Lucky You were box office phenomenons in their own right. Look, I'm not hating on Eric Bana at all. I'm just trying to figure out the advantage of having his name in the credits over someone like Ruffalo. According to your logic, Bana has been in more "big" movies like Black Hawk Down, Troy, and Star Trek, which in turn makes him a bigger star...movies whose core audiences consist primarily of the same people that would probably go see The Avengers regardless.
Couldn't it be argued that because Ruffalo has been in MORE movies than Bana, and has rec'd more award nominations (including an Oscar) mean that he's the more well known?
I still don't think you should underestimate any "rom-com/indie" following he may have. Those are people who probably wouldn't normally go to an "event" movie like The Avengers. Will it prove true in this case? Who knows? I don't think anyone can truly say The Avengers will be any more successful with Ruffalo than with Bana....it's just not that kind of movie.
PLUS, and this is a minor nitpick, Bana is nearly 6'3" tall. Banner is not supposed to be taller than Cap and almost as tall as Thor. I like the fact that Ruffalo's around 5'9"....closer to the comics Banner.
I think the rom-com/indie fanbase will prove to actually be the undoing of Ruffalo as Banner, and lead to --- god, I hate to say it ---
yet another actor playing Bruce Banner by the time Avengers 2 and/or TIH 2 rolls around.
Here's the thing: Ruffalo's fanbase wouldn't be caught *dead* supporting a movie like Avengers. It's corporate megabudget brainless action fodder, in their eyes, and worse --- it's in the superhero genre, aimed squarely at (ewwwww, gross) comic-book nerds. I strongly suspect that Ruffalo's female and intellectualista supporters have been doing some long, hard soul-searching over his decision.
And on the opposite front, Ruffalo runs into resistance from the comic-book nerd fanbase. Ruffalo has not been warmly embraced at SDCC or in the fold in general; it remains to be seen whether his actual portrayal in the movie will be applauded, grudgingly accepted, or downright condemned.
It's troubling, to me, that Ruffalo's role has been very minimized so far in the teaser and his visibility has been almost nonexistent on the location shoots. It also doesn't help that Ruffalo looks (characteristically) like a metrosexual liberal arts professor in his one scene on the bridge in the teaser trailer. That's *not* how fans of Bruce Banner generally want to see him portrayed. Maybe it's part of the anger-management zen training Ed Norton was seen embracing at the end of TIH that's supposed to make Banner a kinder, gentler Hulk (and, box office wise, that's supposed to appeal to the female and art-house crowds Ruffalo generally brings with him); but face it:
...the "real" Bruce Banner from the comics, the TV show(s), and the movies is a scrappy fighter in his own right; a survivor who has just as much street smarts as he does science smarts (born of a hand-to-mouth existence eked out of waking up dazed and disoriented and disarrayed in the back alleys of backwater slums, in the labs of mad scientists and the military bases of equally mad generals, in deep wilderness and even on distant planets surrounded by hostile lifeforms). Bana, Norton and even Bill Bixby have all done great jobs at showing Banner as the harried loner genius living his life on the run; I'm not sure if that's what Whedon is going for by bringing in Ruffalo in a nice jacket that's eminently suitable for teaching Women's Studies at Yale.
