Russo Brothers Reveal If ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ or ‘Avengers 4’ Was Harder to Make

Is it more of a challenge to direct what is arguably the most-anticipated superhero movie of all time or the sequel to the most-anticipated superhero movie of all time?

That’s the question put in front of brothers and co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who helmed Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War and the still untitled fourth Avengers movie.

“Good question,” Joe Russo said to Games Radar. “I think [Infinity War] only because it was a compressed time frame and we were posting it while we were shooting Avengers 4. We were really doing double duty while we were making that movie.”

The Russos have previously stated that Avengers 4 will complete the story they began telling in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

“For us, this was the challenge of telling the story but also completing the personal journey that we started as storytellers in Winter Soldier,” Russo said. “So the story that began in Winter Soldier and that ends in Avengers 4 is a, there’s a very personal arc there for us. I think you’ll understand our point of view as filmmakers and who we are as people when you watch all four of those movies together.”

Despite working on both films at the same time, and the connective tissue between them and the Russos’ Captain America movies, the directors have stressed that Avengers: Infinity War is a complete story within itself.

“It’s a complete story,” Joe Russo said. “It’s got a beginning, middle and an end and the next movie has a beginning, middle and an end, in the same way that Civil War handed off to Infinity War and Infinity War will hand off to the next movie.

“It’s serialized storytelling without question so there is going to be a correlation, narratively, but we really wanted to make two distinct movies. We weren’t interested in making one long film and getting out the scissors and cutting the scissors and cutting it in half. We don’t find that a satisfying cinematic experience so this is a complete story, that’s a complete story, and they’re very different movies.”

Avengers: Infinity War releases on April 27th. Black Panther is now in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.