Russo Brothers’ Marvel Homecoming Might Actually Be a Win for All Involved
Look, they get the formula
We’ve all heard the news. The Russo Brothers Joe and Anthony are in talks to return to the Marvel fold for not one but two Avengers movies. And we’ve all thought of the same Thanos meme in response to this news too.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, producer-director-screenwriter duo Joe and Anthony Russo of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame are in talks to direct the fifth and sixth Avengers movies in the MCU. In case you needed a refresher, these would be Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, two highly anticipated titles and major convergence points for the planned MCU phases’ storylines.
The response to this news has generally been positive from fans. And frankly it does seem like a great idea to have these two back on board to steer the ship because, well, it’s been tricky for the MCU lately, hasn’t it?
In fact, the Russo Brothers returning to the MCU might actually be a win-win situation for all the parties involved—the director duo, Marvel, and the fans. Let me explain.
Despite efforts, the MCU is flailing
NGL, I was rather gung-ho about the idea of having new directors with different filmmaking styles and treatment ideas have a go at giving us something more than the formulaic superhero films we’d gotten so far.
Especially, after Avengers: Endgame, there was no way home, back to the same old story, characters, and feel that we felt comfortable with. Marvel needed to shake things up a bit, establish new heroes—characters we’d grow to love like we did Tony Stark or Steve Rogers—and create new impossible conflicts and villains too.
Unfortunately, not all of its experiments were a success. While James Gunn’s Guardians of The Galaxy films, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and Loki series in Phase 4 worked well, Eternals from Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder weren’t as lucky. In Phase 5 too, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels weren’t well received.
We still want to see new directorial voices brought in to helm some of the many films put out by the MCU, just to see where all superhero movies (and TV series!) can go. But it might be prudent to have proven directors like the Russo Brothers to tackle the big extravaganzas like Avengers movies. They know their audience, they’ve talked about the Secret Wars storyline, and they’re well-versed in the language of superhero films and the action direction that these films require.
The Russo Brothers haven’t had much luck either
Avengers: Endgame was a glorious swan song for Joe and Anthony Russo after a string of well-loved MCU outings, like Captain America: Civil War.
However, as directors outside of the MCU, the Russos were just as lukewarm as the MCU Phase Four and Five were without them. They gave us the Tom Holland starrer Cherry and the Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling-led The Gray Man, both much hyped and with an A-list cast, yet not even close to the general acclaim of their MCU days. (We’ll wait and watch out for The Electric State.)
While they continue to produce ambitious projects like Citadel, Extraction, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and more, it might be fun to return to the MCU and try to do something different in a familiar playing field, with a whole new bunch of characters and storylines. The duo are total Marvel geeks, and it makes a difference when fans like them are behind the camera.
Fans just want the good old days back!
Speaking of fans, there’s been a big return to the Avengers nostalgia, largely because the new MCU movies are not hitting us in the feels. They seem to be in a rush to introduce new characters and tell their stories instead of giving us time to stay with them and care for them enough to root for them against the bad guy.
That’s been feeling a lot of the love for MCU’s television projects, and perhaps that’s why fans think having the Russo Brothers back in the MCU might help return some of that magic to the superhero genre that we love.
Bringing in the Russo Brothers may seem like a safe bet, but right now it looks like a win for everyone involved!
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