Avengers: Endgame Directors Reveal Why They Loved Working With Marvel

After delivering movie fans some of the biggest films in history with their contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, directors Joe and Anthony Russo confirmed they were most excited by telling stories within that franchise as it offered them opportunities to tell important stories with an international appeal on a massive scale. Having previously delivered audiences sitcoms like Arrested Development and Community, fans of the Russo brothers might have been surprised to see them make the jump to big-budget blockbusters, though they themselves felt this was merely a natural evolution of their career, imbuing their MCU films with similar sensibilities to what they brought to more comedic works.

“We’ve had a really varied career. A lot of people are heavily skewed toward our Marvel work, but we started as very low-budget, independent filmmakers,” Anthony revealed to SYFY WIRE. “We tried to imbue our Marvel work with a strong international sensibility, and a lot of world politics and world issues. So for us, it feels like a natural extension.”

The duo’s first foray into the MCU came with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which felt more like a taut political thriller featuring espionage and government corruption than the franchise’s typical action spectacle. They followed that up with Captain America: Civil War, depicting the debate of whether super-powered individuals should attempt to save the day when driven by their internal morals or if they should be sanctioned by a higher authority that determines how to best use their abilities.

“We love that level of filmmaking that Marvel afforded us. We love telling stories on that level, but we’re also fed by smaller stories and more specific stories,” Anthony added. “So for us moving forward, it’s moving back and forth between the two.”

The Russo brothers’ final films in the MCU were Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which might not have spoken specifically to world issues, but did spark some interesting debates. Thanos was motivated by the ways in which species consumed the universe’s natural resources, inspiring him to wipe out half of the living universe. Despite genocide being objectively bad, some audiences sided with the Mad Titan in a “Thanos was right” social media campaign, citing that Thanos’ plan was ultimately for the good of the universe.

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If…? in Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021.

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