The only things certain in life are death, taxes, change, and… if there’s a spoiler for a new Marvel movie floating around, Mark Ruffalo will more than likely let it slip. No one in the MCU has looser lips, and his latest offhand comment has fans spiraling again. The actor casually dropped a line that has people convinced Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man could swing back onto the big screen in the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars. Here’s why.
During a recent Q&A, Mark Ruffalo let something slip that immediately got people talking. A video shared online and picked up by SuperHeroHype shows the Hulk actor casually mentioning that Spider-Man will be facing a very specific kind of threat. And yeah, he says it pretty clearly:
I promise you 1000% that he [Spider-Man] will be fighting an alien in the future…
That one line has completely taken on a life of its own across social media, with insiders and online scoopers suggesting Ruffalo might not have been talking about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man at all. Instead, the theory is he could’ve been hinting at Andrew Garfield’s version of the character. Here are some of the more notable (and very on-brand) reactions from X:
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- @Lilzupiter: “We need Alan Ritchson Eddie Brock”
- @Donapopbuzz: “Fighting venom is not a new trend, I mean nobody really care 🧐🧐🧐”
- @LORDCOSMOERA: “It’ll be a beautiful day when this happens”
- @UpperLvlSweeps: “Venom is coming soon then”
- @TheFoundation45: “Goat 😭🙌”
- @BluRay_ANARCHY: “Yet, he’s not in doomsday for reason people keeps running his mouth.”
- @letterbox3d420: “He already fought aliens”
- @mikebryant1978: “No he didn’t lol”
- @AbbasSy512: “Secret wars*”
- @MetalliDayYTT: “no way i’m so shocked that secret wars will have venom 😱”
- @NatsuLuffy1809: “Mark ‘Big Mouth’ Ruffalo did it again”
A lot of the speculation centers on Venom being that “alien,” with Garfield potentially squaring off against him. And honestly, it’s not coming out of nowhere. Spider-Man: No Way Home already proved Marvel is more than willing to bring legacy characters back into the mix. Garfield’s return didn’t feel like a one-off cameo; it felt like a reintroduction, with the door very much left open for more.
Fans are also zeroing in on one specific moment from that film. When Tobey Maguire and Holland’s Spider-Men talk about fighting aliens, Garfield’s Peter casually admits he hasn’t had that experience yet. At the time, it played like a throwaway line, and it almost certainly was. Now, paired with Ruffalo’s comment, it’s starting to feel a lot more like a setup.
Add in the fact that we know a piece of the symbiote was left behind in Holland’s Universe and that Marvel is building toward Secret Wars, a storyline that’s basically designed to pull characters from across different timelines and realities, and suddenly the theory starts to feel a little more grounded.
Of course, there’s another, much simpler explanation here. Ruffalo could’ve been talking about literally any Spider-Man story involving aliens. The MCU isn’t exactly short on extraterrestrial threats. Between existing setups and future projects, there are plenty of directions for comment to go without bringing Garfield or Venom back into the picture.
But hey, speculating and coming up with fan theories is half the fun, right? It’s also worth noting that Mark Ruffalo is confirmed to appear in the upcoming Spider-Man flick, with the trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day featuring both Punisher and Banner. That gives his comment a much more immediate context, one that doesn’t necessarily point to a multiverse-level reveal. For all we know, there’s just an alien in the next Spidey movie, and it’s Tom Holland facing off against it. I guess we will just have to wait until the movie hits the 2026 movie schedule on July 31 for at least half of the puzzle to be answered.