Yesterday evening, the news broke that the Russo Brothers are in talks with Marvel Studios to direct Avengers 5 and Avengers: Secret Wars.
Now, Jeff Sneider has shared what he's heard about the situation on The Hot Mic podcast. It sounds like Joe and Anthony approached Marvel Studios first, only to be turned down because the studio was already in talks with other filmmakers.
We know Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy was being eyed to helm Avengers 5 at one point but is thought to have passed so he can focus on other projects, including a Star Wars movie.
Believe it or not, it seems no one wanted the job of helming the next Avengers movies. Why? Well, because getting them wrong would be akin to career suicide! Marvel Studios, unable to find anyone, then returned to the Russos with an offer (it's likely an official announcement will be made at the San Diego Comic-Con next weekend).
Sneider also reveals that the Russos' longtime collaborators, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, are expected to rewrite Michael Waldron's Avengers: Secret Wars script and potentially the untitled fifth instalment as well.
However, it could be that only one of them takes on the job, not both!
As for the Robert Downey Jr./Doctor Doom rumour we shared a little earlier, The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez has hinted that, while the actor may return as a villainous Variant, it will likely be as Iron Man, not Doom (which makes far more sense).
"We’re always talking; we’d need to see what would work," Joe said of possibly reuniting with Marvel Studios in a 2022 interview. "We won’t be ready to do anything with Marvel until the end of the decade."
What's changed? Well, the movies and TV shows they've produced at AGBO haven't exactly been a rousing success.
As for how the Russos feel about resurrecting Tony Stark, Anthony recently said, "I don’t know how they would do it. I don’t know what the road to that would be." Joe added, "I mean, we closed that book, so it would be up to them to figure out how to reopen it."
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, meanwhile, has been quoted as saying, "We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again. We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way."
Stay tuned for more updates on the Avengers franchise as we have them.