While the MCU has its fair share of cracking directors, there’s no question that, with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame under their belt, the Russo brothers are among the best according to the studio and fans.
However, it seems that they may be done with Marvel and, if you’re a fan of Secret Wars, we reckon this is bad news.
Joe and Anthony Russo had, in the past, expressed interest in directing a Secret Wars movie (here) as we know the duo love a good team up… and Secret Wars is the grandaddy of team-ups.
In the original comic series, earth’s mightiest heroes and villains were transported to Battleworld, a massive Gladiator planet, by the god-like The Beyonder, where they had to fight to see if good or evil was the more powerful… eventually they had to work together to escape and it’s this aspect that seemed most attractive to the Russo duo.
In the past, Joe has said of potentially doing a Secret Wars movie: “I like the idea of villains having to team up with heroes. [Anthony] 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 added: “It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine — the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga.”
However, while we stay away from such stories, trying to only focus on the fun side of things, you will likely know that Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson has taken legal action against Disney for their simultaneous release of the Black Widow movie in cinemas and on Disney+, saying it was not in her contract; you may also know that Marvel boss Kevin Feige didn’t want to do it either, believing it was not a good idea to co-release the movie.
However, it now seems that the Russo brothers were in the middle of developing a new movie with Marvel, however, the Black Widow situation has left them at something of a dead-end with Disney/Marvel.
Since the lawsuit, brothers Joe Russo and Anthony Russo… hit an impasse in negotiations to direct another Marvel movie. The Johansson dispute left them unsure how their next movie would be distributed and how they would be paid, according to people familiar with the matter. The Russos declined to comment.
If this is true, then this could mean that the Secret Wars movie we’ve all hoped for might be in jeopardy… at least from the Russos.
On the topic of Secret Wars, Feige has said in the past week: “I’ve seen those [Secret Wars] rumours as well. Why is everyone talking about that now? That’s what I want to know. I think one person writes about it, and then another person writes about it, and then everybody’s writing about it, and then it’s happening.”
He goes on: “Secret Wars is a great, giant crossover. There are a lot of great, giant crossovers that we could [adapt] – it’s the ongoing embarrassment of riches of Marvel Comics. We’ve already started filming our 31st and 32nd MCU features, not counting that we’re going on seven, eight Disney+ series, and you can still be asked about other things that you haven’t [touched] yet. And that is remarkable.”
This is all interesting but when you also factor in the fact that Feige has said the next Avengers movie is already in development, could Secret Wars be the next all-star movie on the horizon?
“We want there to be a reasonable amount of time from the Endgame to start a new saga, which is already underway and already started,” Feige says.
“Then you need some time as we did in phase one to build that saga before you start bringing everybody together.”
Hmmmmmm… with the Multiverse being explored in Phase Four already and He Who Endures already set up in Loki, could a multiverse Secret Wars be on the table down the line?
So, there you have it, Kevin Feige is talking about Secret Wars and we’re learning that the Russos may be leaving Marvel with a planned movie already in development… what does it all mean? Well, I’ll leave that for you guys to decide. But I want to hear what you think.
Source: InsideTheMagic and ComicBook
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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