‘Avengers 4’ Directors on If Marvel Will Ever Really Make ‘Secret Wars’

As the directors of Avengers: Infinity War and its (so far) untitled sequel, Joe and Anthony Russo have been living and breathing the Marvel Cinematic Universe for years now. The brothers said they would be done with superheroes after Avengers 4 premieres next year, joking that they’d return to make a Secret Wars movie.

But during a fan Q&A session conducted by Collider, the directors revealed their thoughts on whether or not they think Marvel will actually make a Secret Wars movie.

“I don’t know,” Joe Russo said. “I think Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios President] always has a plan in his head, but he’s always ready to throw out the plan and adjust the plan because you never know how the movies are going to turn out. You want to make sure each movie in front of you is a good movie. And if you’re thinking about the movie past it, then you’re not focusing all of your energy on the movie that’s in front of you.”

Russo’s comments are interesting because of the context of his response. It makes it seem like Feige could have a Secret Wars movie in the works, but would be willing to change his plan should something else come up.

Of course, that’s reading to deep into Russo’s comments, assuming that they mean “yes they will but that could change.” Maybe that’s not even in the works, and Russo is just speaking of hypotheticals.

Secret Wars is an iconic Marvel Comics storyline and one of the first major event comic books from the publisher. The original series, called Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, was a 12-issue comic released in the mid ’80s. In the comic, an omnipotent being known as the Beyonder abducted many Marvel heroes and villains and placed them on a planet called Battleworld.

The Beyonder then declares he will fulfill the wishes of whoever becomes champion of Battleworld, beckoning the heroes and villains to fight until only one is left standing. The series was created for a line of toys from Mattel, and resulted in some iconic storylines that would follow, including Spider-Man’s black symbiote costume.

In 2015, Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic collaborated on a new version of Secret Wars that saw Doctor Doom obtain the powers of the Beyonder(s), salvaging scraps of the dying multiverse and placing them all on his own Battleworld, where alternate realities existed alongside each other. The Avengers and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four end up wresting the power from Doom and use it to restore the multiverse.

We’ll see if Marvel gets that ambitious in the future, but first we have to wait and see what they’re planning with Avengers 4, which premieres in theaters on May 3, 2019.