Joe Russo and Anthony Russo recently released The Electric State on Netflix. Photo / Getty Images
The Oscar-winning sibling directors, who made billions with their two Avengers blockbusters, are back to save the universe.
There are very few people who understand the movies like the Russo brothers - Joe and Anthony, the film-makers behind the Marvel films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, respectively the sixth and second-highest grossing films to date. And then there’s the recently announced Avengers: Doomsday, which has Chris Hemsworth, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby and Florence Pugh in its all-star cast, as well as Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. It’s not just blockbusters, either: the Russos also produced Everything Everywhere All at Once, which won the Oscar for best film in 2023.
This puts them in the rare position of having box-office clout and Academy Award recognition, marrying two worlds that seem to be moving further apart. “Like everything, the film space has become divisive,” says Joe, 53, the younger and more bullish of the siblings, when I join the brothers for a morning chat. “Everything is about who can be the loudest — who can clickbait the most.”
It’s a division that plays out at the US box office, where the big winner at the 2025 Oscars, Anora, ranked the 85th most successful film last year. Only three of the top 70 highest-grossing films of the past 12 months won an Oscar: Wicked, Dune: Part Two and Conclave.
“This trend was started by Harvey Weinstein,” Joe explains. “He vilified mainstream movies to champion the art films he pushed for Oscar campaigns. Popular films were winning Oscars before the mid-Nineties, then Weinstein started mudslinging campaigns … It affected how audiences view the Oscars, because they’ve not seen most of the movies. We’re in a complicated place. Things we should all enjoying collectively we instead punch each other in the face over.”
“Like this argument that Marvel movies were killing cinema,” he continues. “Well, Marvel movies seemed to be keeping cinemas open for quite a long time.” The Russos made, arguably, the best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) - their politically informed thrillers Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016), and the two Avengers behemoths they got out before the rut began. Now they have opted to go back: the brothers are filming two more Avengers movies, due out in 2026 and 2027.
In the meantime they have released The Electric State, their new Netflix sci-fi film starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. Set in a world in which robots are all-powerful, it plays out as an entry-level Terminator. The brothers’ main influences were the production studios Pixar and Amblin, they say. “We wanted challenging material for kids,” Joe explains. “This is about how technology corrodes us - with the generation most at risk of that being our kids.”
The Electric State touches on the subject of AI. Indeed, the brothers used AI for voice modulation in the film - “something any 10-year-old could do after watching a TikTok video”, Joe says. He adds that the use of AI is rife in Hollywood but that people are scared to admit it.
“There’s a lot of finger-pointing and hyperbole because people are afraid,” Joe says. “They don’t understand. But ultimately you’ll see AI used more significantly. Also, AI is in its generative state now, where it has, as we call them, hallucinations. You can’t do mission-critical work with something that hallucinates. That is a reason self-driving cars haven’t taken over, or why AI surgery is not taking place worldwide. But in its generative state, AI is best suited towards creativity.”
The Russo brothers are thoughtful, analytical, punchy: no wonder Steven Soderbergh produced their 2002 crime comedy Welcome to Collinwood after seeing their first short, Pieces. Chris Pratt, who also starred in both their Avengers films, tells me that “Anthony is the big-picture story director, whereas Joe is a more of a performer - very much improv-based”.
The brothers’ career has been nothing but varied too. After Welcome to Collinwood, they directed the cult TV sitcom Arrested Development for a couple of years, directed the romcom You, Me and Dupree (2006), and produced the critically acclaimed Iraqi war thriller Mosul (2019).
It’s given them a sense of perspective that allows them to tackle the big questions facing Hollywood. For instance, I ask them about casting Brown, who is best known for Stranger Things: does fame matter or have stars been overtaken by franchises? “It is about the globalisation of storytelling,” Anthony says. “Joe and I used to work in comedy but then we transitioned into global film-making, with action-adventures travelling well around the world.” He means their Marvel films.
“But comedy is culturally specific, so there was a decline in comedy. And the same goes for stars and if they are valuable any more. That question is a result of the diversification of the global audience, and the fact that there’s not this monoculture any longer.”
When the Russos entered the MCU it was at a bullish time when its original heroes - Iron Man, Captain America and Thor - could do no wrong. The brothers succeeded in making Marvel dig deeper, and it has suffered since they left.
“Well, we love the genre,” Anthony says. “Some people wrote it off as a less comprehensive form of storytelling that’s more for children. But we think of it as relevant for adults, if it is treated with maturity and complexity. That’s really all it is - a commitment to storytelling.”
The trouble is, there are now 29 Marvel TV series and 35 films. The commitment to storytelling has fallen off a cliff, and convoluted plots have taken root. What will the Russo brothers do about it?
“Yes, the MCU has got quite large, that’s for sure,” Anthony admits. “I mean, frankly, we struggle with that same issue. But part of the reason Joe and I decided to go back is exactly what you’re talking about. There needs to be more of a central narrative. That was something we were very specific about when we worked with Marvel [before]. We would like to bring the focused narrative back.”
Well, if anyone can save Marvel, it will be these two. After all, they were the ones who made it billions in the first place. I ask Pratt: can these men fix the MCU? “Sure,” he says. “They know that it’s the mundane, human brokenness of characters that drives stories and makes the Avengers great. They have this ability to find the humanity.”
Back to the Russos: how will they bring back Robert Downey Jr as the villainous Doctor Doom, given he died as a different character, Iron Man, in Avengers: Endgame? “We can’t explain that as it’s part of the story,” Anthony says with a grin. “But there’s nobody else in the world who could play this character the way he’s about to.”
Yet fans surely care less about the lesser Marvel superheroes than they did the big hitters, making the Russos’ return a bigger challenge than their Avengers debut. “Look, every movie is hard,” Anthony says. “But we’re excited. We’ve got something to say.”
Written by: Jonathan Dean
© The Times of London
It's the first interview Lauren Zonfrillo has given since her husband's death.