Russo Brothers Surprised by Avengers: Endgame Box Office

Avengers: Endgame is only days into its theatrical run, but the film has already had a record-breaking turn at the worldwide box office. While quite a lot of box office predictions had forecasted the film’s success, it sounds like the film’s directors were taken by surprise.

During a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference (via Deadline), Joe and Anthony Russo were asked about Endgame‘s $1.2 billion and counting box office results. As the brothers revealed, they were blown away by the film’s performance, as the three-hour epic began rolling out into more and more markets.

“We were def surprised,” Anthony explained. “You could never predict something like this.”

“We saw numbers coming in Tuesday from the international market,” Joe added. “We had good momentum — it’s sort of shock and awe. It’s a testament to serialized storytelling and this movie is benefited from that.”

At the time of this writing, Endgame has grossed $356 million domestically, and $866 million global, for a grand total of $1.222 billion worldwide. These ever-growing numbers are continuing to break more and more records, with the Russos also becoming the first director or directors to enter the “billion dollar club” three times over.

These milestones for the film have a bit of a bittersweet connotation to them, as the Russos have confirmed that they are done with directing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the time being.

“I think that, you know, we’re going to take a little bit of a break,” Joe told ComicBook.com. “We love Marvel. I mean, we’re very close with Kevin [Feige] and Lou [DeEsposito] and Victoria [Alonso] and Trin [Tranh], who’s produced the last two movies with us and eight more. I mean, it’s really like family for us there. But, you know, we’ve done four movies in six and a half years so we’re going to take a little bit of a vacation, but we’ll be, we’ll be back in a heartbeat.”

“It’s our Endgame, at least for now,” Anthony Russo recently explained. “We don’t have any plans for now to make any more Marvel movies. It certainly may come up in the future at some point. We have a wonderful working relationship with [Marvel Studios] and a great passion for what they’re doing.”

What do you think of the Russo Brothers’ reaction to Avengers: Endgame‘s box office? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame are in theaters now. Spider-Man: Far From Home will land in theaters on July 2nd.