The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been blessed to enlist the services of some of the best and brightest talent in all of Hollywood both in front of the camera and behind it. After director Jon Favreau started things off with a bang directing 2008's Iron Man , the mega-franchise has helped to build the brands and name-recognition for some of the most talented and well-respected visionaries in the industry. Big-time names like Taika Waititi, James Gunn, Peyton Reed and more have built legacies with the MCU as more and more movies become released.
Phase 4 is already set to bring in incredible new talent like Cate Shortland ( Black Widow ) and Chloé Zhao ( The Eternals ) alongside already established MCU fan favorites like Taika Waititi ( Thor: Love and Thunder ) and Jon Watts (the MCU's Spider-Man trilogy). However, this new phase will likely see the end of a directing team that has made four of the MCU's most memorable and successful movies to date. This dynamic tag team recently took some time to divulge what exactly it would take to bring them back into the fold.
NEWS
In a recent interview with Bro Bible , Marvel directors Joe and Anthony Russo went into depth about their journey through directing four MCU films and what went into making some of the most successful blockbusters of all time. Article writer Eric Italiano talked to the brothers about what it would take to bring them back to the franchise:
Now, I don’t want to hound you guys about a return to the MCU because I know you get that a lot, but you did once say that if there was a story that could bring you back, it would be Secret Wars . In fact, I actually just started reading it last month. Outside of the job itself, what is it about that story that appeals to you guys?
Joe and Anthony gave these responses to this massive question about the Secret Wars storyline:
Joe: You know, I read that when I was 10 or 11, and it was the scale of getting all of the heroes together. It was one of the first major books to do that — that was really event-storytelling to me at its finest. And what happens when you put all of those personalities together. I also like the idea of villains having to team up with heroes. Anth and I like complicated relationships between heroes and villains, we like villains who believe they’re heroes in their own stories, so it’s all sort of built into this notion of Secret Wars . To execute something on the scale of Infinity War was directly related to the dream of Secret Wars , which is even larger in scale.
Anthony: It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story — the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga .
WHAT THIS MEANS
This isn't the first time Joe and Anthony Russo have brought up Secret Wars when talking about a potential MCU return, but it's quite illuminating hearing them go so in depth about why they would want to tackle that specific project. Describing the potential of "villains having to team up with heroes," both directors seem to love the idea of such complicated relationships between the possible characters involved in this story and figuring out ways to to make them all heroes in their own right.
On top of that, it seems like the idea of having a "Secret Wars" movie be potentially more massive than any of their past MCU projects would be an opportunity that the directing team simply couldn't pass up. Joe and Anthony have already made superhero classics out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier , Captain America Civil War , and the monumental combo of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame , so it would clearly take another major project to bring them back after so much excellent work up to this point.
Joe and Anthony Russo have said over the past year that they most likely would not direct another MCU movie until a Secret Wars-focused movie, and there are no confirmed plans or rumors of their return to the franchise.
