Marvel Attempts to Make It 2019 Again
Bringing back the Russos to make 'Avengers' movies won't solve the studio's larger problem.
Yesterday, THR reported that Joe and Anthony Russo, the directing duo behind Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, were in talks to return to Marvel to helm the studio’s next two Avengers movies. It’s a sad story, like a couple that thought they outgrew each other only to discover that they can’t really do any better than their old partner. Marvel’s Phase 4 and 5 struggled to connect with audiences, and the Russos, despite some success as producers through their AGBO banner, haven’t broken out as directors with their weak streaming efforts Cherry and The Gray Man (they also helmed the upcoming The Electric State for Netflix, but if the duo is already trying to line up a gig with Marvel, that doesn’t indicate much confidence in the project’s popularity).
The joke is that Marvel Studios and the Russos are made for each other. Marvel, even before it spread itself too thin with Disney+ series, was basically a big television operation. The Russos, although they came out of indie cinema, were most successful as sitcom directors on terrific shows like Arrested Development and Community. While both sides can recognize great cinema, they also don’t have the skills or the inclination to achieve it. The Russos are middle managers, and Marvel Studios is all about the assembly line. The directing duo can’t properly cook haute cuisine, but they can serve up some fast food hamburgers. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re aware that’s the business that you’re in.
However, simply bringing back the Russos to make more Avengers movies, while a sound theory on paper, doesn’t work as well in 2024 as it would in 2019. You have to keep in mind everything the Russos inherited when they first joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They could not only draft off the success of The Avengers, but also that the core cast and world-building had been done for them. To put it another way, I don’t know if the Russos would be the guys you hire to launch a new superhero, but they were the right choice for superheroes established in a prior movie.
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