Back in September, Mark Ruffalo (Margaret) said that he would not only be playing playing Bruce Banner in the Joss Whedon directed live-action Marvel team-up, The Avengers, but he would actually be portraying Banner’s big green alter-ego using the same motion-capture technology employed in James Cameron’s Avatar as well.

Ruffalo said,

“I’m really excited. No one’s ever played the Hulk exactly, they’ve always done CGI. They’re going to do the Avatar stop-action, stop-motion capture. So I’ll actually play the Hulk. That’ll be fun.”

Just a few days ago, actor and stuntman Brandon Molale (True Blood, Touched) took to twitter and indicated that he had just auditioned to portray the motion-captured Hulk in The Avengers.

It seems that Ruffalo may have spoken too soon, or maybe his schedule wouldn’t allow for the necessary time to complete the motion capture work. It could also mean that Molale will be doing the motion capture for the stuntwork and action scenes for the film, while Ruffalo does the more close-up, facial work for the Hulk. Maybe they should have called in a Mo-Cap expert like Andy Serkis who had not problem handling both tasks for King Kong.

The film stars Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye).

The Avengers is slated to hit theaters on May 4th, 201