Ep72 - Anthony & Joe Russo / "Avengers: Infinity War"

time opening box office record last weekend. Just before release, I sat down with director's Anthony and Joe Russo to discuss their approach to lifting familiar story beats off the page, decimating expectations, and a cliffhanger ending and tying several strands of a decade long narrative together. All of that and more on this week's episode. So sit tight, this is playback. Open up a little bit more. Are you kidding? It's a yeah. It's like an amazing energy change. Thing about

that pressures that we saw the movie. So it's twenty three days hard. I can't really talk about what don't want to really talk about. I wait to the film. Also, it's like, you know, you get pushed into this like because you have to be vague. You have to. It's not only being vague, but it's being like potentially so

vague that you're misdirecting, you know what I mean? Like perhaps even almost giving something more away than if you had just been a little more candid or could have been a little more Yeah, because you're trying to tiptoe around something and more like are you talking about this or that? Yeah? Exactly. So it's like it is a big change change how close you have to be, Like, it's closer you can so if you're able, you know, tends just kind of to this. Have you have you

seen the movie yesterday morning? So at least you're talking to Tony Brother. We've had Taygon, we had Ryan just a little closer. Yeah. Yeah, you just give him just right, very funny taker. And Jeff Goldblum given this guy more little oh yeah, yeah, just started doing stuff like this, Yeah, giving exaggerated looks and stuff. Yeah, he's a good you know, he has a good performing gene. And yeah, and Jeff goldblue Man, were you at the press conference that he

didn't he hosted the press conference? So did junk at in l A this weekend. He was amazing. He's so funny. I love you just have him host every press Yeah exactly almost. Jeff was here for a while. We used here for like an hour and a half. Yeah, he was just like he didn't have anything to do until like hours later in Santa Monica. Took a ton of photos with him and yeah, it was like six x thirt eating and after business. Ye think he say he's awesome,

really cool. Yeah, he's He's one of the coolest. It's even amazing stories. It's a whole other energy that you're warped into you're talking to him that takes some like half hours shake it after. Oh yeah, yeah, he's like he's on his own plane. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, you got it all sweet, it's all right. Just ah man, you guys are good on time, right Yeah, yeah, yes, we were were fine. Sweet, Thank you him, wrap up and we'll start. Thank you Dan, thank you. Thanks man. So

we're recording. You know, we got a casual intro thing we did. So I'm here with Anthony and Joe Russo, the Russo brothers, directors of an Avengers Infinity War, which, uh, you know, I made this joke when we had Ryan Googler in the show. Is a film I'm sure everyone's heard about. And if you haven't, where you've been coming on the show, guys, um the movie comes up. The movies out now actually, so you know, that having been said, I'm sure a number of people haven't seen the movie.

So if you haven't seen the movie yet, you might want to come back to this conversation. You know, leave it, come back later after you've seen it. We're not gonna dive into big spoilers, but you never know what might come out in the conversation. So just to let everyone know at the top, so noone yells at me, but yeah, thanks for coming on the show. Guys really appreciated. Uh you guys, Uh, Anthony and Joe. Obviously you directed the

Captain America's Equals went your soldier and Civil War. So you know my first question here, I haven't looked into this. I was curious just where the conversation shifted from that to hey, do you guys want to take over the flagship? You guys want to take over you? Like, how did how did that happened? That was while we were in post I believe on so World War Uh. You know, we've had a lot of great experiences with Marvel and we get along really well with everyone over there. Um,

you know, we we enjoy working there. They give us an incredible amount of trust. Let us tell the stories that we want to tell uh. And and we have a great relationship collaboration with Markus McFeeley, the writer's Christopher Marcus and Steve McFeeley, who wrote all four films that we've done with Marvel. So we're a little bit of like a sub studio, uh, like a little hive mind that that started in the in the cap universe, but slowly those films started to absorb the main Avengers storyline.

So I think to them that made sense that we should only continue what we had done in Civil War into an affinity war, you know, and the ending of Civil War, you know, with the Avengers divided in the relationship between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark destroyed. I think, you know, it was such it seemed like such a a great set up for the Avengers finally facing their greatest threat in Thanos, that there was just a natural

narrative progression there. And you know, once, like Joe was saying, I think basically it's like once they saw the first edit of Civil War, I think that's basically when the conversations began. And certainly Civil War proves that you guys can handle all these different and your TV work as well, but these different threats, these different characters, because this is a movie that has this massive ensemble. Civil War was kind of like waiting into that already, right, yeah, very much.

I mean that was that was a huge ensemble. I mean, you know, even even Winter Soldier was an ensemble really. But you know, it's like seems like every time every movie now we've more you know, doubled, more doubled or more than double the size of the ensemble. So yeah, Civil War uh was you know, we definitely look, Joe and I have always thought about our creative process. We we've like analogized it to like being mad scientists, you know.

We like to take desperate elements and kind of smashed them together in unusual ways and just see what that makes and see what that brings you creatively. And I think that, you know, starting with Civil War and certainly continuing through Infinity War, that has been the very process of like making these movies, because we have been taking these characters from different different films, different tones, different styles, and figuring out how do they exist in a single

film together? What does that do to them when you mix them? And uh, yes, that's so I think. Yeah, we began that process in Civil War. Even that having been said, I mean, like I said, this is a movie with so many moving parts, so many threads to pull together. Uh. The most impressive thing to me is that the balance that you strike is so um, it's it's solid. I mean, there's there's no like everyone has

not just their moment, but their ark. Everything feels full, it's not like things are just nominally dropped in because we want to get all these wold things in there. Like everything. The balance is really captivating to me. And it's maybe it's partly a screenwriting question, but you talk a little bit about that finding the balance when you have this many moving parts, and on top of that, I'm curious if there was ever a moment in the

development where you know you just felt completely overwhelmed. Uh. We have a very disciplined process that um. That is part of our collaboration with Marks mcpheely. That involves getting in a room together, the four of us for months on end discussing story, character, potential arcs for characters. Where do we leave them last, Where do we want to leave them? What are we trying to say with the film. Thematics are really important to us. Usually we can't proceed

with the story. And to understand the theme is that we're trying to trying to chase uh and I think you know this is it's an incredibly disciplined process, is one that Anthon I forged through years of producing television. It's got a bit of a writer's room approach to it. We have a screen, we have a computer, you know, like I said before, there's a hive mind in the room, and we're all collectively talking story and bouncing ideas off

of each other. Um and we all have you know, war al Wolvers in the Marvel universe at this point. So the process is putting characters up on a board, discussing them in great detail, each one of them, talking about who fits in the story who doesn't. It's very important us that we find the characters who have the

emotional connection to the a story on this movie. In particular, that that's Gomorrah Thor as well um want Vision and Wanda vision obviously because he's wearing one of the mcguffins, or he has one of the mcguffins in his head. Gomera has a pre existing relationship with Thanos. Thor has a vendetta against Thanos. So you know, you fish around, you find that that emotional connection to the villain, uh, and then you build in all the other characters around that. Tony.

This is what's unique about this movie. The Kid could not have been made with eighteen films pretty seating it. It's just a it's a unique attempt at narrative in a way that you know, could only exist with with this giant mosaic preceding it. So the you know, Tony Stark has a history as a futurist. Um, he's got to you know, predicting uh, the end of the Earth and that that threat will come from space. So he

already had a built an arc relating to Thanos. Even though he didn't identify him personally, he understand he understands what Thano say is and always knew this was coming. So this is just a payoff of an arc of his. It's it's a m I've been in play for for several years now. So that that's how we slowly pulled together the points of view and the story. Um. Once we have a script, we then sit in the room again for many many weeks, and we go through the script uh, and each day we spend time on each

character just you know, like today's Tony Stark day. I'm just gonna sit and read this gap from Tony Stark's point of view. The next days, uh Steve Rogers day, or to Child's day, and then you know you really combed through and go what do they want at the beginning? What are they getting by the end? Where there moments in the movie, what are we trying to say about the character? And so it's just like you just you know, it's a process just putting coat paint on the house

after code of pain after code of pain. Uh, you know this is sort of kind of the well, actually the question about feeling overwhelmed, did you ever have moments where you have to just step away from this big board of all these threads and clear your head? I mean, you know it's surprisingly for me, the most overwhelming, uh part of it was just the very beginning. You know.

We started the process by basically putting uh pictures of every single character in the m c U on the wall of our room with Bartus and mcpheley, and you know, just looking at them for days and weeks and stead of thinking about who we could play with, who we could pull forward where we can push pushed the characters. And I think just getting started was a little overwhelming

because there were just so many possibilities. And I think once we did start, once we started to catch those emotional threads, like Joe was mentioning that, then of all of a sudden, it's sort of got much easier and it started to flow, and we started to have a have a have a narrative spine, and a and a theme and a concept that we were chasing. And then once that happened, then it certainly remained a lot of

hard work, but it was no longer overwhelming. Yeah, this is, you know, sort of the the m c U version of the Infinity Gauntless story obviously written by Jim Starlin, big product of a number of childhood's, my own included. I went back and read it again before the movie, just because just out of curiosity, you see what might be plucked trument or whatever. I'm always curious with comic book movies what kind of graphic inspiration comes from what's

on the page? Like will will there be an attempt to duplicate a frame or something like that, something that might be iconic. I mean, there's Certainly the way the line Thanos is coming is handled is an interesting shift

from the character that says it in the story. But uh, just as directors and trying to figure out visually how to tell the story, do you kind of look at frames and say this would be an interesting thing to lift or no, because the more I look at a lot of these movies, there's not a lot of that going on. There's some some and it depends that the director to director. And we grew up on comic books. We love them. I still have three thousand comic books in my closet, you know, so as they you know,

we we are comic book fans. However, you know, uh, filmmaker is incredibly different media than than a book. And you know, uh, we're not telling the story of these books. We're telling the story of the Marvel Cinematic universe as

it's been laid out over the last decade. So uh, you don't want to get trapped into trying to replicate specific story elements that don't correlate to what we've been doing in the Marvel Cinematic in so, um, you know, we will elicitly there are lines that inspire us, or there are frames that will put up in Civil War is a frame where famous frame from the book with with Tony blasting cap shield and we I think that's probably the only time maybe um aunt man, I'm hawkay zero,

you know, so very rarely that we will actually go this is an amazing frame from the book. We gotta put this in the movie somewhere. I think there's one moment in this but it's not you know, it take you of you or two to catch. But it's when them t Chila punches. Um what we're who were calling cold City and but was black Door for the books and they've been run when Tony takes the shield than last thing, I'm un tightened. Oh yeah that image as well. But yeah, yeah, so they're but but yeah, I would

say the image. We treat the images kind of like we treat the ideas that are in the books. Are the lines, like Joe was mentioning, they're all so they're all sort of exciting to us and are all valued by us. But you know, in the pro sense of telling an original story in the movie, you know, you can't really there's only a little bit of that that you can actually hang on to. Yeah, there's there's kind of subconscious things you can play with their like color palette.

Do you look at the colors of what's in these books and say, you know, obviously the characters have their own schemes, but just environments and things. I asked Taka about this because his movie was such a big, kind of very colorful splash, but talk about that there's the colors a little it wasn't. I mean, specifically in Winter

Soldier in Civil War. Those movies were of a piece for us because we were retoning and deconstructing Captain America and there were the intention was for them to be brutalist, devoid of color. We wanted them to be less comic bookie and more gritty and edgy and real. Um, so we were we were trying to simplify the color palette on those movies. Um. This film in particular, we didn't

draw anything specifically from the books. But there's a very different film and it's in the point of view a Thanos is a giant purple alien, so uh, and you go to a lot of really exotic, cosmic location. So it's a much more colorful movie. And these color is a way to distinguish locations in the film. So the unclear understanding when you're one place and then when you had left that place and go on to another place of an incredible maybe the best production of that of

the business right now. Gentleman named Charlie Woods, who who designed all of these exotic locations for us. So, um, we didn't really draw artistic inspiration from the books. We drew I think thematic and philosophical and uh inspiration as well as a couple of key lines. But it could we were. We are making so many distinct changes from

the books. I think that's you know, really what we do is we tailor color and texture to the to the essence of the narrative that we're trying to tell, and very often that is significantly different than the book, you know. And then and then I think that's what leads us away from the from using relying on colors specifically from the books. Yeah, he started talking about Thanos there.

I wanted to talk about Josh Brolin, who uh surprised me, and I only say that because I don't want to say I thought he would phone it in, but I didn't know what he would do with the performance. I didn't know if it would be something that would have the kind of depth that it has, and it's such an emotional performance. It's such a deep character that has just this overwhelming sense of melancholy. And I was really blown away by his work and just one amazing jan

I mean, he's an extremely talented actor. I mean, he looked the and I think he was very excited by the opportunity to play somebody who had so much violence in him but also some shred of humanity as well. And I think that you know that that sort of that that that's very exciting for an actor, because it's such a complex thing to play, you know, to try to to try to bring mp empathy to a character that is is so evil, UM and the and he

embraced that challenge and he ran with it. And I also think that he was very excited by the technology, you know, the idea of you know, performing in a motion capture suit and sort of and us being able to build this fantastical creature CG creature, but based so specifically on his performance, his facial performance, his voice, his

body movements, etcetera. UM, I think he really you know, we would analogize that sometimes it's almost like you're a puppeteer as as a performer, and you have to learn how you control the puppet, which is your CG representation of the character. And we spend a lot of time. We had we had a we had a Terry Notary worked on the film who's extremely one of the best movement people in the business. That he worked very closely with Josh to get him to understand the relationship between

his movements and Thanos's movements. And they would practice quite a bit before we would get to shooting, so they got very comfortable with the character. So it's a very very involved process. And I think Josh was just excited by the whole proposition, and I think a one point he's turned us and he goes, oh my god, it feels like I'm into film. Are an acting school again, because you're really sort of bringing somebody into a place that almost feels like an acting exercise, or you're doing

something you've never done before, your experimental figure. There's very few actors who combined who have that threat of violence and vulnerability at the same time as johsh does, So I don't know who else could play the part really, uh, And it was our intention to make him very complex, to have moments where you you know, weirdly empathize with the villain. We find that that makes for more interesting villains. In every villain as a hero in their own story.

And this movie in particular is told from the point of view of the villain. I mean, you go look at the film and you you know, you want to do like a traditional structure breakdown of the movie. It all breaks down around Dan's character, not the heroes, um, which again was something we did just as a way to try to keep the storytelling fresh. Um. And we knew the have been so much build up behind this character that we really needed to describe him as a lot of story real estate in order for him to

become that character that everyone was expecting. And along that the way we went ship let's just give him the story. Uh, it just seemed like, you know, we were creating elements around which the the the structure was breaking down around him anyways, or you know, grafting onto him. So uh, it's a unique film in that regard. And uh, and you know it is. It is his story and it's

his ending. Let's talk a little bit about Chris Hemsworth and you know, kind of allowing Thor to sort of run away with this movie in a way in terms of certainly the humor which reaches back to you know, Tayka's world and finding just kind of discovering that Thor is is a humorous character. It can be a humorous character. And I'm curious what kind of input, if any type, might have had in this film as well. So Tycho was shooting while we were shooting, and that's a massive

retne of the character. So we knew he was returning, so we had we we asked him and we're very close with tyka Um just on a personal level. So we just asked him to come down with Hemsworth and hang out with us in a room for a day with our writer's Marcus feelings, just talk about what they were doing, show us some of the dailies, uh, and so we could get a sense of where he was

taking the character. Now it's still a more sobering, it's still a more sober interpretation of Thor, but it has that that element of of Ragnarok to it, that the absurdest element um uh. And he certainly has his jokes in the film. But for us, what we what we loved about the character was that he was you know, he really Thor has the hero's arc in the movie.

If this movie belonged to the heroes. Um uh. If events didn't unfold the way that they did, it's it's you know, it's his film to win, that Thanics's film to win. Uh. And we like, again, just having grown up on comic book characters, Or was a favorite of mine growing up, it's a very powerful character. Uh. And when you're looking around the the condre of characters that we have who could defeat Panos, clearly Thor could. He's got a problem. He doesn't have his hammer, which is

a huge part of his abilities. Um so um. We felt like because of what happens at the beginning of the film that you know, this is now a man without anyone, was a man without a country, uh and all all all he has in his heart as vengeance at this point. So it becomes this even though he's this absurd ast character, he now has this incredible pathos to him as well. On a drive and it's a weird combination of tone that seems to really resonate with

the audience. He's an underdog. You want him to succeed because there's nothing left for him to do but succeed.

It's interesting because Joe mentioned earlier, you know, we we do have a we do tend to enjoy deconstruction, and uh, you know, there's an analogy I think between Thor and Captain America, you know, the the idea of stripping everything away from somebody, you know, caps sort of waking up in the modern world and and realizing he's not in sync with the country he's he's been serving any longer, etcetera, and sort of leaving him at the end of the Civil War where you know, he puts down the Shield

and Thor I think had a similar movement and losing asgard And it's like there's something happens when you start to tear away all the sort of elements of a superhero and then who are you left? What's the human being you're left with after that? And I think that was something that was very attractive to us in this story that we could explore Thor on that level, because look,

these characters have such remarkable powers. Um you know, we always looked to is where their vulnerabilities and and quite usually their vulnavabilities are are have to do with their emotional life, for their psychology, where are they in their lives? What's happened to them? And Thor between the events of the end of Ragnarok and the things that opened this film, Thor was an incredibly vulnerable place. Uh, and that was

it's very juicy for us on a storytelling level. By the way, what's the dynamic like on set with you guys? I mean, you know, directing duos, everybody has their own way of going about things. Just walk me through, like how how you work through a scene together? Well, it's the same way we handle an interview like this. It's just trading off. Uh. You know, we we believe that the you know, um that you know, two minds aren't doubly better than one mind, they're exponentially better. So we

want both our brains on everything. It's part of our our process is uh is you know, we don't divide things up. One of us doesn't have the camera, the other talk to the actors. We both do that. We both have notes for them, we confer with and then one of us gets out of the chair and goes in approach to the actors. Um. So it's a it's a very informal process. There's no real definition to it. Uh.

It's certainly keeping ourselves um um inspired and engaged. And uh, you know, the best idea wins that every idea significantly um by you know, you know, arguing through the best path forward. Uh and typically um we find you know, you know, through that debate, we tend to find the best answer for us. Yeah, anyone ever try to play you against each other? Not successfully? Yeah, Uh, you know, waiting a little into spoilers, but not too much. Uh. You know, the end of this film is quite dark,

boldly so for a popcorn summer you know, blockbuster like this. Uh, which is that exactly why we did it? Normally I would ask, you know, was there pushback? But obviously Marvel is very attuned the story they're trying to tell. So why do you think Marvel is so comfortable with leaving a movie hanging in such a dark matter? Is this?

I mean, look again, it's sort of the same idea that when you're dealing with these very powerful characters, they don't become interesting, they don't become human, they don't become relatable, and they don't become rootable until there, until you find their vulnerabilities. So I think it's a very similar concept in that you don't unless you have real steaks, you're sort of limited in terms of what the emotional impact

a story can have on you. Um so, and these movies have been living now for a while, so you have to go to very difficult places in order for these things to feel, the stakes to feel real, for the characters to feel like they have something to lose, for the audiences to feel like they have something at risk in the films. And I think that's really it is, like we don't you know, we go to these films.

I think we're what we're looking for in storytelling or an artist like emotional Catharsis, and you can arrive at tharcists. You know, it's not simply just getting what you want. It's getting it. It's getting an emotional experience that makes you feel and respond to it and and energizes you on some level. And yeah, sometimes that can be difficult ideas,

you know. I think what that's one virtue of fantasy films is that you can sometimes you can deal with with with difficult ideas more freely in a fantasy film than you can in a movie that's more realistic because it's a little it's a safer zone to play in for people. You know, it doesn't it doesn't necessarily, it's because it's one stuff removed from something they may have experienced. You can sort of swim in ideas and emotions that

might be more uncomfortable if they were too realistic. We've learned over the years as filmmakers that you know, we do our best work with our when we follow our instincts and we tell the story that we want to tell. And you know, we've had one or two experiences early in our careers where we didn't do that, and we learned a very hard less and that you know, when you try to predict what an audience wants, you're gonna

make mush. And when you try to tell, when you tell, when you commit to telling the story that you want to tell them to hope everybody likes, it, tends to have a much more, a much more resonant um um impact on the audience. When we started working with Marvel and Winter Soldier, we wanted to do such a radical departure from their first film because we said, you know, the characters moving forward in time, the interpretation of that character that we're interested in is much more edgy and

modern than what you've done on the last one. And they said, great, do it, let's see what happens. And so they've always been risk takers, I think. And and something we used to say all the time as a mantra to them about why we should take risks is you know, the audience can tell you they love chocolate ice cream. You give them to them every day, they get sick of it real fast, and then you get

sick of it before you know it. And then you know, I got you know, three three chocolate ice creams waiting to go, and you know, and they don't want it anymore. So you've got to stay ahead of them. And uh and and they can't be they shouldn't be able to predict where you're going. Uh And surprises aren't important for that. And so if you look at every film that we've done from Marvel, Winter Soldier at a huge game changing

event at the end of the movie. Civil War had a huge game changing event at the end of the movie, and Infinity War is a huge game changing event at the end of the movie. We are interested in pushing the boundaries and pushing the story for it in unexpected ways, surprising the audience as much as we can and uh and as Ann said, creating a cathartic experience for them, because ultimately it creates a cathartic experience for us as artists, and it's the only thing that gets us out of

that every day. That's sort of dove tails with this question which I was talking to you off off the

air earlier. But you know, I won't I won't name names, but certain characters appear to perish at the end of this movie, and I'm cure I wanted to talk about just striking the balance between a definitive notion of finality if there is such a thing with a movie like this, and you know, the age old uh element of comic book characters coming back to life, Because there are certain characters that appear to parash at the end of this movie, and I have to imagine your fan base is thinking

they're not gone. They can't be gone, because they're aware of the business and sequels that are presumably still in the mix. And you know, is there a worry of And I don't know where you're going with it either. That's That's where I'm going to disadvantage. You're asking this question, but is there any kind of a worry of insulting a fan bases intelligence that by it not seeming real, but by them thinking, oh, well, there's no way this

character has gone Well, I can't. Here's the thing, it's hard, it's hard to answer that question specifically without getting in spoiler areas. But I will see this. There is a real commitment on our end to to the stakes, you know, and yes, this is a fantasy world, and yes, remarkable things that can happen in a fantasy world, but some of those stakes are they come into incredibly high cost,

so they are for us. There will always be steakes, and the stakes have been progressing from film to film with us, from Winter Soldiers, Civil War, during Finny War, and I think you extrapolate that they will continue to to deepen and Avengers, for that's the thing. You have a whole other movie to kind of wrap this story up. So I'm at this disadvantage. But when you when you end a movie like that, it just it raises a ton of questions, which I guess is the idea right,

and especially to your point of unpredictability. Uh, Ultimately, this movie is this the one that pulls all these various strands together. It's kind of the apotheosis in a way of like the Marvel Studios brand, right, It's it's like this culmination. It's big. To put a fine point on it, I guess my question is can it get even bigger? And do you expect it to? I don't know. I mean, you know, we don't. We never think in terms of big I guess yeah. We think in terms of what's

the story? And a culmination story of eighteen film and a bunch of successful franchises is naturally of a certain scale. Um. I think that, you know, the ambition of Infinity War in particular was to put them all on screen together, working together against the common enemy. And then you know Avengers for us a different ambition. Uh So, so I don't think that, you know, if you ever think in terms of like outdoing, I think you tend to trip over your own two feet. Uh. You really have to

commit to what is a narrative here? What story we're trying to tell? What is it required to tell that story? I think it happened, naturally happened that you know, Civil War is bigger than Winter Soldier and Infinity Wars brul in Civil War only because the story of slowly pulling the universe together was increasing as it went. Uh. And but that's not a mandate that we can follow as filmmakers.

The path that leads to to know where I mean, yeah, there's all these new toys essentially to play with now as well with the Fox deal. So is there a place to introduce the X Men? Is there a place to introduce Fantastic for I mean, I feel like a movie like Infinity War, it's not suffering for the lack of Silver Surfer, but you certainly those who know Infinity Gaunt Win are like, Silver Surfer would be cool in this movie. So you know, is there is there a

room for that going forward? Well, we're that look at I think just as far as we're that specific deal is at right now, it's still it's you know, it's not at the point where you you know, we can start working with those characters on a creative level yet. So you know, we are we again, we are Leah exactly. We'd love to and hopefully we'll all work out someday, but it's not in the timeframe of these movies that we're making right now. You guys have certainly gotten people

excited just by mentioning those two words secret Wars. You know, so that's a big comic for me. Yeah. Same. You have the action figures. Yeah, I had every I had all of it. I mean it was a that I think that was probably the most important book to me. Well, there you go. Hopefully we can see something like that in the future on the big screen. Uh. You know, I wanted to ask, this is obviously the culmination of ten years of effort, and Marvel's got something figured out.

Kevin five, He's got something figured out. You guys have got something figured out. Uh. Others who may be trying to make cinematic universes might be struggling. What kind of advice would you give to someone trying to pull off what Marvel Studios pulled off over the last to do it? Not everything? Not everything can be sustained through a cinematic universe. I do think serialize it. I think that all of this.

I think that Netflix, Marvel, Star Wars, what's going on in the business right now, this massive moment of disruption that we're in, It is really a function of audiences craving new kinds of storytelling. And I do think that we a really nice run for a hundred years of two hour, two dimensional storytelling. But I think over the next decade two decade and a half, you're going to see a radical shift and ow stories are told. I would argue that Netflix dumping ten episodes of a show

on a Friday is a new form of narrative. It there's a ten hour narrative and you can choose to watch it at your leisure. But that's why I think it's so exciting to people, because it's another way to digest content and that structure is less predictive to them. We have seen so much content that any that every you know, every average movie goer, it has a level of sophistication and respect to um their ability to predict

what is going to happen in a movie. Which is why Anthon I spent a lot of time trying to hide the secrets of this film, m direct through the way the trailers were cut, misdirect with information. You know, it's just too easy for them to intuit what is going to happen. And I think that you know, a universe is a new form of Storytelling's a giant mosaics.

I've ever done this before. This is unprecedented what Marvel has done these, especially with some of um so many successful franchises UH and film Like if any war could not happen without this giant mosaic behind it, where you have all this pre existing emotional interest in the characters. You know, if we had to tell all those stories and all their stories and introduce all those characters from on film, it's absolutely impossible. So I do think that

what I would encourage people to do. The advice would be to continue to look for new ways to tell stories, because I think the audience is open to it, and I think that you know, there's traditionally a generational divide, but I think that this new generation is more is going to move an advanced storytelling in a way that we haven't seen in a long time because of the tech advancements in their lives and the way that they are used to digest and content on YouTube and social

media and much more compressed formats. They're more facile and fluid UH, And they like emotional commitment, to long term emotional commitment. But there's lots of ways to engender that that don't do not involve building out a universe, and you know you mentioned that Netflix there, obviously Marvel has properties there. Actually wanted to ask you guys, was there

ever any discussion. I know there's a it's two different sides of the coin over there, TV and film, but was there ever any discussion about bringing some of these TV characters into the fold for the Avengers? We made the briefest consideration of it, but it was really just you know, in our process of like we when we were alone in a room with Marcus and mcphey, we consider every idea you could possibly you know, it's like

we like thinking of everything. But it seemed like we had the story that had been told within the cinematic universe. It was so within the movies. It was so specific and so elaborate already that once we started working through the story, we knew our we had our handsful just with this set of characters, in this set of narratives. So it was the briefest of consideration too. And are you guys expecting to stick around after this fourth Avengage movie?

Gonna stay with Marvel? Because that was a curiosity. Yeah, we have a great We've had the best experience for our careers with Marvel. We had a great relationship with them and we love telling these stories. They're very important to us. So really be a function about what is that story if we do stick around. Certainly it's enticing when you know all these new Fox characters will show up. There's a very complex universe that can continue to build out.

We also have very personal movies that we want to go make, but we're workaholics, and you know, we tend to put a lot on our plates and um, you know, I think we can tell our personal stories and and tell some more big stories with Marvel as well. I

think it's room for all of it. And the interesting thing about those new the Fox properties is not that I'm pitching for a spot in the writer's room, but it's it's it's an interesting way you could handle it, Like this was the build to the team up right well and stuff like that. You could throw them into the mix, do the reverse. You've got the team up, and then you can build out separate stories about the

X Men, Fantastic Fource Solar Surfer after that. So it's almost a way you can experiment with the reverse of what's happened over the last decades. It's a lot of fun stuff you can do. I like the way you think it sounds good. Well how your people call my people? Right? All right? That's the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe. The movie is called Avengers Affinity War Again. If you haven't heard about it, what the hell go see it. If you haven't yet, you'll love it. I loved it. I

thought it was again fantastic balancing act. So hat hats off to you both, and thank you again for doing the show. Bud Sho