Russo Brothers: Directing Back-to-Back Marvel Movies “Not Good for Your Health”

Like wielding all six Infinity Stones at once, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo say directing back-to-back Marvel movies is “not good for your health.” In a new interview for their Netflix movie starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, The Gray Man directing duo reflected on making Marvel’s two-movie Infinity Saga climax spanning the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, grossing a combined box office of $4.7 billion worldwide. Dwarfing its first crossover event that brought together Earth’s mightiest heroes in 2012’s The Avengers, Marvel Studios’ super-sized epic assembled the heroes of its mightiest franchises — Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy — for the first time ever.

Working on Infinity War and Endgame simultaneously is “not good for your health, that’s for sure,” Anthony Russo told GQ. “It was difficult. I remember all of us at the end said, ‘I will never shoot two movies like that back-to-back ever again’ (laughs).”

Acknowledging that the herculean undertaking was “really difficult and challenging,” the Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War directors noted the superhero ensemble allowed them “a huge, very unique sort of creative opportunity that you don’t have often in storytelling.” 

“We like to constantly be revising,” Anthony said. “It really did allow for a big interplay between what we were doing for the two movies, and for us to be moving back and forth creatively.” 

Still, the Russo brothers haven’t ruled out their return to the MCU. After the Tom Holland-starring drama Cherry, and now their Winter Soldier-influenced action-thriller The Gray Man, the Russos have expressed interest in Marvel’s rebooted X-Men or a Secret Wars two-parter. 

“[Secret Wars is] incredibly ambitious; it would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame,” Joe Russo recently told Deadline. “But it’s a massive undertaking, and those two movies were very hard to make. So trying to imagine making another two movies even bigger than those two? We’re going to have to sleep on it.”

The Gray Man is streaming July 22 on Netflix. Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame are available to stream now on Disney+.