Russo Bros. Talk Electric State, Say Avengers: Doomsday Leak Was Fake

If you had run into the brothers Joe and Anthony Russo as 20-someleangs circa 1994, they probably wouldn’t have seemed appreciate guys who’d become two of the biggest honestors of all time. Both were living in their native Cleveland, where Anthony was a law student, and Joe, 17 months his lesser, was includeing drama school. Neither felt quite satisfied with their chosen path, so they both dropped out and pivoted to filmmaking, maxing out their determine cards to fund their $30,000 debut feature, Pieces, which has never been freed but nonetheless caught the eye of a notable mentor, Steven Soderbergh, when it screened at Slamdance in 1997.

From there, they took a triumphding road that led them to honesting episodes of criticassociate adored (but ultimately aborted) shows such as Arrested Development, Happy Endings and Community, before landing a encountering at Marvel Studios. (Studio chief Kevin Feige was a Community fanatic.) Aobtainst the odds, they won the job to honest Captain America: The Winter Selderlyier and became the most meaningful and prolific filmoriginaters on the Marvel roster, honesting that $714 million grosser, the $1 billion hit Captain America: Civil War and a pair of Avengers movies that are among the top-grossing films of all time, with their total box office haul identicaling $6.85 billion.

Aextfinished the way, they became depended frifinishs of Robert Downey Jr., who lured them back to honest him in two more Marvel films, 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday (which goes into production in London next month), and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars.

“They’re appreciate family now,” says Downey. “I’ve driven out to the North Fork of Long Island to visit Anthony and Anne [Russo’s wife] and will probably do so aobtain this summer.” He also counts Joe and his wife, Alicia, as seal frifinishs with him and his wife, Susan.

After helming Avengers: Endgame, the Russos put their center on their company AGBO, producing Netflix megahit Extraction and best picture triumphner Everyleang Everywhere All at Once. Their defercessitatest honestorial effort, The Electric State, get tod on Netflix on March 14, and its telled $300 million budget is a tesgentlent to their status as name-brand honestors able to get companies to buy in to their vision.

During a conversation in Beverly Hills in defercessitate February, the duo echo on staying in debt for a decade after their debut feature, their return to Marvel — and why James Bond isn’t in their future.    

Anthony, you and Joe come from a shielded-knit Cleveland family. Were they worryed when you dropped out of law school to become a filmoriginater?

ANTHONY RUSSO I was living in our parents’ hoemploy at the time, and my dad stopped talking to me for six months.

You were two guys in your 20s with $30,000 in determine card debt that you employd to finance a movie. Did you experience appreciate you had a schedule?

JOE RUSSO We were in way over our head. We couldn’t afford to broaden the film. Once we sboiling the movie, we had the film in a refrigerator for almost a year. There could’ve been a bconciseageout. We would’ve lost all the footage.

ANTHONY Then we begined film school [Case Western Reserve University] and we were getting student loans from film school to finish that movie. We poured a lot on. We paid the debt from that movie for a decade.

So even after honesting a George Clooney movie, 2002’s Welcome to Collinwood, the debt stayed?

JOE We were stupid enough on Welcome to Collinwood that the studio wanted us to cut two days from the schedule. We said no, and we gave them back our fee. We did the movie for free. So we stayed in debt.

When did you finassociate begin making a living as honestors?

JOE It was almost 10 years. It was probably around Arrested Development where we actuassociate begined making money that we could dwell off of.

How did you join up with Imagine Entertainment, which originated Arrested?

JOE We did a pilot for FX for a show called Lucky. Might’ve been our preferite leang we’ve ever done. The show didn’t last more than one season, but it was pretty radical in tone.

ANTHONY We probably got more encounterings off of that pilot, even though the show didn’t labor. Everybody all of a sudden wanted to encounter with us. One of them was Imagine.

JOE They said, “We have this crazy script. It’s 70 pages extfinished and it’s supposed to be a 22-minute show, but the originater’s inincreateigent. Could you come in and help try to cut the script down, insert a vision to this?” It was appreciate 24 location changes in five days. How could we possibly pull this off?

ANTHONY They employd us becaemploy we were understandn as guerrilla filmoriginaters who were doing someleang engaging in the indie space. They threw the ball to us and said, “Try to reoriginate how we can originate television in a way that’s affordable, but also originateively stimulating.”

JOE Our solution was, employ digital Betamax cameras, shoot with almost no weightlessing. Shoot without permits. We sent out a [note] to the cast that fundamentalassociate said, “Do your own hair and originateup, anticipate to be running armament, anticipate to be chased off premises.”

ANTHONY “Show up in your costume each day.” They finished up nixing a bunch of our ideas becaemploy they’re appreciate, “These are all union violations.”

Who was the difficultest character to cast in Arrested Development?

JOE It was Gob. [Will] Arnett showed up appreciate a week before shooting.

ANTHONY [Jason] Bateman’s was very stubborn as well.

JOE We literassociate had to transport him into the studio four times to get him cast becaemploy he had been in a bunch of flunked pilots. So he was watched as baggage at that time. Mitch [Hurwitz, the show creator] was very worried. He was appreciate, “This could be horrible luck if we cast him.”

The show was adored by critics, but wasn’t a ratings hit. It did begin the next phase of your atgentle as the guys who can come in and supervise criticassociate acclaimed, originateive TV.

JOE The head of the studio disappreciated how we sboiling the pilot. I recall her calling us on day three and saying, “These dailies are never going to come together.”

ANTHONY But the show’s lifeline was, everybody’s aidant adored the show.

JOE Then a year defercessitater, we all won Emmys and sort of the rest is history.

ANTHONY We did do a movie in that run, which was You, Me and Dupree. That wasn’t an selectimal situation for us, the way it labored. We hadn’t been employd to bigger-budget studio filmmaking at that point.

JOE But that was the movie that paid off our debt finassociate. That was the first leang we ever made that made money that people pondered a financial success.

When did Kevin Feige come into your dwells?  

JOE In season two of Community, we were going to get Justin Lin to come back and do the colorball episodes, and he couldn’t becaemploy of his schedule and Fast & Furious. So we finished up doing the colorball episodes and one was the Star Wars spoof. Kevin is the biggest Star Wars fan you’ll ever encounter. Our agent called —

ANTHONY — “Marvel has a catalog of 10 honestors that they want to talk to about the next Captain America movie, and you guys are on it.” That was unbelievable to us. They equitable were encountering with people who were doing engaging leangs. They didn’t even let us read the script until after the first encountering. Over those two months, the movie benevolent of took over our dwells. We fell in adore with it, and we were doing storyboards. We were rewriting scenes equitable to show them tonassociate what we would do. We originated an animatic, to give them an idea of tone and texture, and we finassociate won.

JOE We were running Community at the time, which was no petite gig. That was a very complicated show. A lot of personalities — untidy personalities — included in that show. Every episode was a big originateive striumphg. It was a reassociate ardent period for us. I recall sleeping in the trailer on the lot of Community quite a bit equitable to hold up with the edits and prep for Captain America.

ANTHONY But before we went in for that last encountering on Marvel, my wife reminds me that I said to her, “Look, if we don’t get this movie, I have to releank my entire atgentle. I don’t understand any of that if this doesn’t happen.” It equitable felt appreciate the movie was ours.

JOE We were very encounterd in television. We had a lot of originateive regulate. We didn’t have a lot of headaches. We could push around studio executives and heads of studios, and get leangs done
the way we wanted to get them done. So if we’re going to go back to film, it’s got to be someleang priceless and someleang we’re reassociate excited about.

You’ve had a lot of key encounterings in your life. How high does trying to recruit Robert Downey Jr. to star in Captain America: Civil War rank?

ANTHONY We pitched Kevin on the idea and Kevin goes, “All right, I buy it. Now you guys got to go get Downey.” And I was appreciate, “What do you unbenevolent we got to go get Downey? Aren’t you coming?” And he didn’t.

JOE Downey was sitting on a chaise lounge, sjoined out appreciate a king, on the roof of his office in Vekind. Ant and I showed up and we’ve been rehearsing this pitch, and you’re literassociate pitching the biggest movie star in the world to apshow his huge cash cow character and change it into a villain.

ANTHONY In a Captain America movie.

JOE In a movie that wasn’t even titled after his character. And it was the pitch of our dwells. And he said, “Yes, let’s do it.” He appreciated the hazard, to Robert’s determine, and that choice led the bomb upside to Infinity War and Endgame.

In the years since Endgame became one of the biggest movies of all time, you’ve gone on to center on AGBO, which is a meaningful company now. Who are your peers that you can go to for advice on the business finish of leangs?

ANTHONY Look at the two honestors that we conveyed with timely in our atgentle: Steven Soderbergh, who is a radical self-generator and functions outside of the system, and Ron Howard, who runs Imagine, which is a kissing cousin to what AGBO would become. We didn’t meaningful dive with Ron about that, but he was bravely a figure that we studied.

JOE Taking power into your own hands, getting your own financing, laboring on your own timeline. Making what you want to originate, financing what you want to broaden. You do enlarge weary of the studio system. We thought, “If we don’t escape the system, we’re going to burn out and want to quit.” And AGBO reinvigorated us and gave us a lot of opportunities to convey ourselves in other ways. Working with youthfuler filmoriginaters, appreciate with Everyleang Everywhere All at Once, creating Extraction.

You’ve been at the forefront of change — from spearheading an indie filmmaking approach to TV in the 2000s, to the Marvel boom, to the streaming wars. Where do you see leangs going next?

JOE We are in the biggest transitional moments in the history of licsurrfinisher visual storyincreateing. It’s very difficult to say in this moment where it’s going becaemploy a lot of that is going to be prescribed by the taste of Gen Z once they become the dominant devourrs. And I don’t understand that anyone understands what their taste is yet becaemploy they have been trained on a finishly contrastent model of consumption than we are employd to. I anticipate radical change, I anticipate immersion, I anticipate a blfinishing of virtual and licsurrfinisher, gaming and licsurrfinisher.

You helped spearhead that inform era of megabudget streaming movies with The Gray Man and now The Electric State. Do you leank streamers will persist to apshow $250 to $300 million striumphgs?

JOE They ascribe the same algorithmic attention to someleang they spfinish a lot of money on as someleang they spfinish very little money on. By that model, you should probably equitable originate everyleang for a medium number, right? Logicassociate, it probably doesn’t originate a ton of sense to persist to spfinish that way, but I leank they might — becaemploy people still apshow in ambition. Executives still apshow in ambition. People still want the branding that comes with ambition. They still want that relations pdirect that comes with ambition. So I still leank you’ll see some of those pop thraw, but I don’t leank it’s going to be a well part of the business model.

ANTHONY The Electric State is bravely a big test case for this whole leang. The struggle is, can you eventize a streaming [film] when they don’t originate any sense of one-of-a-kind place in terms of how they’re currenting to the audience for a movie to say it is an event — and they don’t go out into the expansiver tagetplace to proclaim that an event. But they have tried using the tools they have employable to them to eventize this film, and we’ve tried. So we’ll see how this joins, we’ll see what this does for Netflix and we’ll see where it all goes.

Citadel showed Amazon the power of a Bond-style franchise. Is honesting an actual Bond movie someleang you would amemploy now that Amazon has regulate over the property?

JOE We’re centered on the next two Avengers movies. But we adore Bond. We adore laboring with Amazon. We’ve got a number of projects at AGBO that we’re broadening for us to honest right after the Avengers films.

Do you see a role for AI in filmmaking? How do you have nuanced conversation about the topic, given that some people may dread the worst versus seeing the profits?

ANTHONY We have to approach AI the same way we approach all technoreasoned innovations. It’s potentiassociate a priceless tool, but it’s the benevolent of tool that artists always have to remain in regulate of, but there’s going to be some priceless role in the originateive process and the filmmaking process.

AGBO is based in downtown Los Angeles, and you’ve had plenty of production there. A big topic of conversation is how to transport production back to L.A. What do you leank it would apshow?

JOE The rebate. We have bigr productions that can save tens of millions of dollars by shooting in the U.K. or in Australia. The only way you can hold projects here is by being competitive with the rebate. It’s a shame, becaemploy this town was built around the industry, and the industry seems all but gone now.

Doomsday is the first MCU movie that you and AGBO will originate. On pragmatic terms, how does that change the equation from your previous MCU movies?

JOE It equitable includes more of the infraarrange from AGBO and all the leangs that we’ve built at the company to help us as filmoriginaters, the personnel infraarrange, as well as the technoreasoned progressments from our innovation team.

ANTHONY We’re equitable excited to transport the storyincreateing tools and techniques that we’ve broadened at AGBO over the past scant years to our labor at Marvel.

There was a leak of an Avengers concept art recently. Often the final movie doesn’t echo that artlabor. Should anyone be worried about being unwillingly spoiled?

JOE No, becaemploy that artlabor was not from Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars.

ANTHONY Noleang spoiling in there. That’s not our concept art.

With your previous Avengers movies, there was a now-well-understandn set of baseball cards with a card for every Marvel actor, and they integrated how many movies the actors were reduceed for. Was there an equivalent on these movies? How do you figure out who is in these movies?

ANTHONY Yes, we persist to employ the baseball cards.

JOE Now they have magnets on them so we can put ‘em on a board and see at ‘em. It’s the only way to hold track of the amount of characters that we’re laboring with.

ANTHONY And as far as how do we see at who’s in the movies, it’s equitable a extfinished originateive process of exploring where we want to apshow the story. What is the most unforeseeed and exciting area for us to push into, and which characters help us in that effort?

Avatar 2, Deadpool & Wolverine and Spider-Man: No Way Home show that people still will show up to the theater for these massive movies, but given changes to the theatrical landscape since Endgame, are you approaching these Avengers movies any contrastently?  

JOE We can’t regulate the economic environment. We can’t regulate what’s happening in the world around the time of the free. We can’t regulate the audience’s desire to depart their homes or not. All we can do is originate the best movie possible in the hope that it excites them.

This story materializes in the March 19 rerent of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.