It was the right call for Joe and Anthony Russo to step away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe following Avengers: Endgame, because there was really no other way to go than down after delivering the highest-grossing movie ever made in their fourth effort behind the camera on Kevin Feige’s monolithic franchise.
Of course, rumors surrounding an impending return have never really gone away, some of which has been fueled by the Russos themselves. The siblings admitted that an adaptation of Secret Wars would be enough to convince them to saddle up and helm another superhero epic, and that very project has been the subject of increasingly intense speculation.
The Scarlett Johansson debacle dampened some of their enthusiasm, though, but new book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe via ComicBook notes that they’ve only ‘softly retired’, with Joe Russo explaining why they’d never slam the door all the way shut on the MCU.
“We laugh a lot, and that’s really important. We all have a very similar sense of humor, and we spent a lot of time making jokes with each other and enjoying each other’s company during very long, difficult hours—whether in the story room, on set, or in the edit room. Everyone’s very supportive and encouraging of one another. You can’t undertake something as significant as the two most expensive movies ever made, back-to-back, without that kind of environment. You just wouldn’t survive.
There’s no other way through it than with warmth and laughter. It starts with their very specific passion for the material,” he says. “That’s a big part of it. Because the connectivity they have between what they do, what they say, what they think, and the actual work—it’s all in synchronicity. It’s all connected. For as hard as these movies were to make, the process with them could not have been easier.”
The real issue would be finding time in their schedules, when you remember how busy the Russos are. Netflix blockbuster The Gray Man, an entire Extraction universe, Universal sci-fi The Electric State with Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt action comedy Saigon Bodyguards, Amazon series Citadel and Disney’s live-action Hercules are all in various stages of production or development, so the MCU might need to wait in line.