Avengers: Endgame directors on their Marvel Cinematic Universe journey
- Anthony and Joe Russo have directed four of the franchise’s films and were given responsibility to close the US$17 billion-grossing series
- Both are well aware of the huge responsibility they have taken on, but feel the film will live up to its billing
The end is nigh. Game over. Phrase it how you want, but this month, one of cinema’s most lucrative franchises comes to a close – sort of.
Avengers: Endgame does not just bring to a conclusion the two-part story featuring Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America et al that began with last year’s Avengers: Infinity War . It’s also a defining moment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the 22nd film in an increasingly interwoven arc that began in 2008 by introducing Robert Downey Jnr in Iron Man.
As director Anthony Russo puts it: “This is a type of animal that we’ve never seen before in cinema.”
After Infinity War became the first comic book movie to gross over US$2 billion worldwide, expectation for Avengers: Endgame is at insane levels; in the US it is already shattering records, selling five times more tickets than Infinity War in the first week of advance sales.
It’s hardly surprising. At the end of Infinity War, Thanos – “the Genghis Khan of the universe”, as Joe dubs the villain played by Josh Brolin – activated his gauntlet of all-powerful infinity stones. With a casual finger-snap, he wiped out half the MCU characters, from Doctor Strange to the Guardians of the Galaxy.