Fall Movie Preview: Russo brothers, maestros of ensembles, test their limits in 'Avengers: Doomsday'

NEW YORK (AP) — Before they were the most-trusted hands behind Marvel’s largest epics, Joe and Anthony Russo presided over a slightly less potent assemblage of talent: the Bluth family of “Arrested Development.”

Beginning with “Arrested Development” ( 14 episodes directed ) and “Community” (34 episodes), the Russo brothers established an especially keen sense for the rhythms and intersections of ensemble casts.

“For whatever reason, Joe and I have always really been drawn to ensemble storytelling,” Anthony says. “Maybe it speaks to the fact that we work as a team.”

“We grew up in a very large Italian family full of colorful personalities,” suggests Joe, citing their Ohio upbringing. “It was complex family dynamics. We all grew up on the same street; people lived in different houses. We spent dinners together on Sundays.

“We were always interacting with a large amount of personality and interpersonal dynamics. I think that’s how we see the world and see stories.”

That inclination has served the Russos well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly in the sprawling superhero films “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018) and “Avengers: Endgame” (2019). But even for the Russos, “Avengers: Doomsday” (in theaters Dec. 18) is a unique juggling act. It brings together (deep breath) the Avengers, the Wakandans, the New Avengers (from Earth-616), the Fantastic Four (from Earth-828) and the original X-Men.

“The MCU is this massive experiment in how vast, how much scope can an ensemble really have?” Anthony says. “If we have a taste and talent for ensemble storytelling, we’re certainly pushing ourselves further than we ever have before.”

Joe and Anthony Russo spoke in a recent exclusive interview — or rather interviews, because the brothers spoke separately while knee-deep in work on “Doomsday” and its 2027 follow-up, “Avengers: Secret Wars.” They were finishing work on “Doomsday” — scoring, editing — while, in their words, “soft prepping” production on “Secret Wars.”

“When you’re doing one of these movies it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done,” Joe says. “When you’re doing two of them, it’s almost inconceivable. But it’s the second time around we’re doing two back to back.”

When the Russo brothers were last at the helm in the MCU, “Endgame” marked the apex of Marvel as a cultural force. Conceived as the culmination of a decade of movies, “Endgame” became the second highest-grossing film of all time, with $2.8 billion in ticket sales. (The Walt Disney Co. will bring it back to theaters as “Avengers Endgame: Encore” on Sept. 25.)

Since “Endgame,” the MCU has undergone plenty of expansion and experimentation. But Phases four, five and six of the MCU have also been notably rockier than the first three phases. Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, has acknowledged that oversaturation played a role in the downturn.

For the first time, Marvel wasn’t immune to the ups and downs that characterize the rest of the movie world. “The Marvels” in 2023 tapped out with just $206 million in ticket sales. “Captain America: Brave New World” in 2025 landed the worst CinemaScore, a “B-,” for a Marvel movie.

“Doomsday” aims to reinvigorate the MCU. It features not just the return of the Avengers and the Russos, but also Robert Downey Jr. The former “Iron Man” star plays the villain Doctor Doom. Downey has said he wouldn’t have come back if the Russos didn’t, too.

So there is a get-the-band-back-together quality to “Doomsday,” a movie expected to be among the highest-grossing ever. Do the Russos feel that the film will, after some MCU stumbles, restore order in the Marvel universe?

“It’s a great question. It’s part of the unique challenge,” says Anthony. “The thing that Joe and I have always appreciated about our collaboration with Marvel is: Our job isn’t to answer for the entirety of the MCU. We intersect it in a very specific way. It’s that intersection which is where we can make sense of things.”

Of course, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” ($2.3 billion worldwide) has already nearly matched “Endgame” in box-office might. Anthony Russo, “buzzing” from the movie, calls the film’s reception “a wonderful challenge.”

Yet the Russos promise something special in “Doomsday.” They have referred to it as “back to zero,” “starting from scratch” and “a profound shift” in the MCU. Even in the ever-expanding realm of the MCU, the Russos have been animated by stories with defined beginnings (“Doomsday”) and legitimate endings (“Endgame”). Even if “Endgame” wasn’t really the end, they needed to believe it was.

Since then, the Russos have directed three films for streaming: 2021’s “Cherry,” for Apple Studios; 2022’s “The Gray Man,” one of Netflix’s most-watched original films; and 2025's “ The Electric State .” They also launched an action franchise for Netflix with “Extraction.” Their production company, AGBO, has turned into a consistent blockbuster maker, producing not just “Doomsday” but the Oscar-winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

It took something extra to bring the Russos back to Marvel. They were coaxed back, Anthony says, by a “foundational narrative concept” suggested by cowriter Steve McFeeley.

“We never want to coast on the capital that already exists,” he says. “We want the greatest value of the film to reside in the new thing it’s bringing to the table.”

Orienting the film around Dr. Doom, however, wasn’t the initial plan. Originally conceived as “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” the fifth “Avengers” film went through considerable retooling after Jonathan Majors (who played Kang the Conqueror) was dropped from the franchise after being convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

The Russos eventually stepped in. But the revamped production meant going into shooting with an unfinished script.

“We always view the script as a living organism,” says Joe. “We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.”

A lot has changed since the Russos last released a Marvel movie. The pandemic came and went. The industry defaulted to streaming, only to again embrace theatrical. The phrase “superhero fatigue” was trotted out at times, though less so after “Brand New Day.”

If there’s a guiding template for the Russos for the kind of movie they want to make — one with grand scale and moments of emotional intimacy — it’s the Western. Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” was a particular inspiration for “Doomsday.”

“Joe and I grew up fans of all types of cinema, but Westerns have always been very special to us. Throughout cinema history, the Western has been declared dead for decades, and then you can still make one of the greatest examples of the genre.”