Joe and Anthony Russo bowed out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their heads held high after tying up the Infinity Saga in spectacular fashion with Avengers: Endgame, which even spent a brief spell as the only film not directed by James Cameron to have been named as the highest-grossing of all-time in the last 26 years.
However, it would be fair to say that the wheels have become a little wobbly in the four years since, even if they haven’t come off quite yet. The Multiverse Saga has delivered some of the franchise’s lowest points on both a critical and commercial level, and a couple more misfires could see Kevin Feige left with a mountain to climb when it comes to winning skeptical fans back onside.
In an interview with the Radio Times, though, Joe Russo urged audiences to be patient with what Phases Five and Six are cooking up, underlining that the long game is the only one that gets played at Marvel Studios, even if it isn’t exactly a personality trait the target demographic is known for.
“There’s nobody better at telling stories than Kevin Feige right now. If you’re going to bet on anybody, you bet on him. I think that the type of story that unfolded in the phases that we worked on [was] a very specific kind of story that wrapped itself up in those phases and now it’s time for a new story, and I think that’s the direction that Marvel’s headed in.
They’re telling you a very different story, a very new story and I think the audience just needs to be patient with the redirection because you can’t keep telling the same story over and over or you lose the audience. I think they’re taking some very big swings and they’re playing around with the tone and they’re championing diversity as much as anyone in the storytelling space right now and all of these things are huge wins for large-scale storytelling.”
Of course, that’s easy to say from the outside when you’ve already co-directed four of the MCU’s finest installments and haven’t shown much of a vested interest in returning to the well, but Russo is keenly aware of and fully understands the process, so maybe it’s worth taking his words of wisdom at face value.