Here’s How The Russo Brothers Collaborated With James Gunn And Other MCU Directors

Avengers: Infinity War was very much a team effort from top to bottom.

Behind the lens, Joe and Anthony Russo worked in close collaboration with Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, screenwriters of The Winter Soldier and Civil War, along with the two upcoming Avengers sequels. But given Infinity War is part of a wider cinematic universe – and a big part at that – the Russo Brothers also sought the advice of the MCU’s other filmmakers (read: James Gunn, Ryan Coogler, and Taika Waititi) to ensure their Marvel blockbuster is a cohesive, compelling unit.

Indeed, that joint venture came up in conversation when Joe and Anthony Russo spoke to Collider, where the latter name-dropped Peyton Reed (Ant-Man) and Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange) as trusty collaborators.

Peyton [Reed] or Scott [Derrickson]. I would say collectively, everyone in the Marvel Universe has been involved in this movie. We’re very close with all the directors, we love them all. We have a lot of conversations with people constantly, we have a lot of talks with Taika — because that movie isn’t finished and he had executed things on set that we needed real information about, tonally, about the direction it was going in. The Guardians’ two movies existed in the same world, so we had an understanding of how those characters behaved.

James Gunn’s advice also proved indispensable – so much so, in fact, that he’s listed as one of Infinity War‘s executive producers – and here, Anthony Russo continues by highlighting the ways in which Gunn helped integrate the Guardians and their own zany humor into Avengers 3.

I think James has functioned the same way that everyone has been functioning. I think it’s a nod to James, the EP credit, that he really helped create those characters. But as far as how we’re working, we’re working in a real collaborative united artists approach to the movie. In respect to hearing people’s … where people are taking their characters, Ant Man 2 is just about to start shooting, so we need to keep in communication with Peyton constantly about story elements in that that may affect this.

And finally, Anthony Russo gave an honorary mention to Ryan Coogler, a director who’s still riding high after the release and subsequent success of Black Panther.

Ryan Coogler. Sorry, we didn’t mention him. Ryan was in the middle of shooting Black Panther, and he was here and we had several conversations, met with him many times, met with the crew many times with him, his production design department, we looked at fight vids from the story. We had a lot of interaction with Nate Moore, the producer, many text messages back and forth with Ryan. It’s really just trying to do the job of managing the universe as it’s progressing.

Look for Avengers: Infinity War to open worldwide on April 27th.