Filmmakers, the Russo Brothers recently appeared at the Sands: International Film Festival in St Andrews, Scotland, and GamesRadar caught up with them about many aspects of their varied careers so far. They discussed topics such as the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, their time working on “Avengers: Endgame,” and the superhero fatigue that some moviegoers are experiencing.
Joe Russo believes that Marvel’s current issues all come down to the shifting tastes of viewers due to the way the globe consumes information these days. Furthermore, he underlined that it impacts all of Hollywood, not just the MCU.
“I think it’s a reflection of the current state of everything. It’s difficult right now; it’s an interesting time,” he explained. “I think we’re in a transitional period, and people don’t know quite yet how they’re going to receive stories moving forward or what kinds of stories they’re going to want.”
He then said, “There’s a big generational divide about how you consume media. There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a theater on a certain date to see something, but it’s aging out. Meanwhile, the new generation ‘I want it now, I want to process it now,’ then moving onto the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same time.” He concluded by saying that he thinks everyone, including Marvel, “is experiencing the same thing, this transition. And I think that really is probably what’s at play more than anything else.”
Russo went on to explain that the world as a whole, as well as the film and television industries, is affected by this issue, emphasizing how hard it is to solve.
“We have never collectively, globally, processed our conversation so intimately and quickly as we do now. I think that creates problems, where we over-process and don’t care about context anymore,” he said.
The director added that “the two-hour format, the structure that goes into making a movie, it’s over a century old now, and everything always transitions. So, there is something happening again and that form is repetitive. But it’s hard to reinvent that form and I think this next generation is looking for ways to tell their own stories that service their own sort of collective ADHD.”
The two also concur that they don’t think there is superhero fatigue; Anthony Russo notes that even if there were such a thing as superhero fatigue, it wouldn’t be exclusive to the movie industry.
“The superhero fatigue question was around long before the work we were doing,” he explained. “So, it’s sort of an eternal complaint, like we always used to cite this back in our early days with superhero work. People used to complain about Westerns in the same way, but they lasted for decades and decades and decades. They were continually reinvented and brought to new heights as they went on.”
Up next for the Russo Brothers is the sci-fi adventure film “The Electric State” with Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, which is scheduled to arrive sometime in 2024 on Netflix.