Speaker 1: M h. You're listening to playback a Variety I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio podcast. I'm your host, Variety Awards Editor Chris Tapley.
Speaker 1: If you haven't been paying attention, Marvel's Avengers Infinity War
Speaker 1: is still stacking up her seats after breaking the all
Speaker 1: time opening box office record last weekend. Just before release,
Speaker 1: I sat down with director's Anthony and Joe Russo to
Speaker 1: discuss their approach to lifting familiar story beats off the page,
Speaker 1: decimating expectations, and a cliffhanger ending and tying several strands
Speaker 1: of a decade long narrative together. All of that and
Speaker 1: more on this week's episode. So sit tight, this is playback.
Speaker 1: Open up a little bit more. Are you kidding? It's
Speaker 1: a yeah. It's like an amazing energy change. Thing about
Speaker 1: that pressures that we saw the movie. So it's twenty
Speaker 1: three days hard. I can't really talk about what don't
Speaker 1: want to really talk about. I wait to the film. Also,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you get pushed into this like
Speaker 1: because you have to be vague. You have to. It's
Speaker 1: not only being vague, but it's being like potentially so
Speaker 1: vague that you're misdirecting, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: perhaps even almost giving something more away than if you
Speaker 1: had just been a little more candid or could have
Speaker 1: been a little more Yeah, because you're trying to tiptoe
Speaker 1: around something and more like are you talking about this
Speaker 1: or that? Yeah? Exactly. So it's like it is a
Speaker 1: big change change how close you have to be, Like,
Speaker 1: it's closer you can so if you're able, you know,
Speaker 1: tends just kind of to this. Have you have you
Speaker 1: seen the movie yesterday morning? So at least you're talking
Speaker 1: to Tony Brother. We've had Taygon, we had Ryan just
Speaker 1: a little closer. Yeah. Yeah, you just give him just right,
Speaker 1: very funny taker. And Jeff Goldblum given this guy more
Speaker 1: little oh yeah, yeah, just started doing stuff like this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: giving exaggerated looks and stuff. Yeah, he's a good you know,
Speaker 1: he has a good performing gene. And yeah, and Jeff
Speaker 1: goldblue Man, were you at the press conference that he
Speaker 1: didn't he hosted the press conference? So did junk at
Speaker 1: in l A this weekend. He was amazing. He's so funny.
Speaker 1: I love you just have him host every press Yeah
Speaker 1: exactly almost. Jeff was here for a while. We used
Speaker 1: here for like an hour and a half. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was just like he didn't have anything to do until
Speaker 1: like hours later in Santa Monica. Took a ton of
Speaker 1: photos with him and yeah, it was like six x
Speaker 1: thirt eating and after business. Ye think he say he's awesome,
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, he's He's one of the coolest. It's
Speaker 1: even amazing stories. It's a whole other energy that you're
Speaker 1: warped into you're talking to him that takes some like
Speaker 1: half hours shake it after. Oh yeah, yeah, he's like
Speaker 1: he's on his own plane. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, you got
Speaker 1: it all sweet, it's all right. Just ah man, you
Speaker 1: guys are good on time, right Yeah, yeah, yes, we
Speaker 1: were were fine. Sweet, Thank you him, wrap up and
Speaker 1: we'll start. Thank you Dan, thank you. Thanks man. So
Speaker 1: we're recording. You know, we got a casual intro thing
Speaker 1: we did. So I'm here with Anthony and Joe Russo,
Speaker 1: the Russo brothers, directors of an Avengers Infinity War, which, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I made this joke when we had Ryan
Speaker 1: Googler in the show. Is a film I'm sure everyone's
Speaker 1: heard about. And if you haven't, where you've been coming
Speaker 1: on the show, guys, um the movie comes up. The
Speaker 1: movies out now actually, so you know, that having been said,
Speaker 1: I'm sure a number of people haven't seen the movie.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't seen the movie yet, you might
Speaker 1: want to come back to this conversation. You know, leave it,
Speaker 1: come back later after you've seen it. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: dive into big spoilers, but you never know what might
Speaker 1: come out in the conversation. So just to let everyone
Speaker 1: know at the top, so noone yells at me, but yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. Guys really appreciated. Uh
Speaker 1: you guys, Uh, Anthony and Joe. Obviously you directed the
Speaker 1: Captain America's Equals went your soldier and Civil War. So
Speaker 1: you know my first question here, I haven't looked into this.
Speaker 1: I was curious just where the conversation shifted from that
Speaker 1: to hey, do you guys want to take over the flagship?
Speaker 1: You guys want to take over you? Like, how did
Speaker 1: how did that happened? That was while we were in
Speaker 1: post I believe on so World War Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: we've had a lot of great experiences with Marvel and
Speaker 1: we get along really well with everyone over there. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we we enjoy working there. They give us
Speaker 1: an incredible amount of trust. Let us tell the stories
Speaker 1: that we want to tell uh. And and we have
Speaker 1: a great relationship collaboration with Markus McFeeley, the writer's Christopher
Speaker 1: Marcus and Steve McFeeley, who wrote all four films that
Speaker 1: we've done with Marvel. So we're a little bit of
Speaker 1: like a sub studio, uh, like a little hive mind
Speaker 1: that that started in the in the cap universe, but
Speaker 1: slowly those films started to absorb the main Avengers storyline.
Speaker 1: So I think to them that made sense that we
Speaker 1: should only continue what we had done in Civil War
Speaker 1: into an affinity war, you know, and the ending of
Speaker 1: Civil War, you know, with the Avengers divided in the
Speaker 1: relationship between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark destroyed. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it was such it seemed like such a
Speaker 1: a great set up for the Avengers finally facing their
Speaker 1: greatest threat in Thanos, that there was just a natural
Speaker 1: narrative progression there. And you know, once, like Joe was saying,
Speaker 1: I think basically it's like once they saw the first
Speaker 1: edit of Civil War, I think that's basically when the
Speaker 1: conversations began. And certainly Civil War proves that you guys
Speaker 1: can handle all these different and your TV work as well,
Speaker 1: but these different threats, these different characters, because this is
Speaker 1: a movie that has this massive ensemble. Civil War was
Speaker 1: kind of like waiting into that already, right, yeah, very much.
Speaker 1: I mean that was that was a huge ensemble. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, even even Winter Soldier was an ensemble really.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like seems like every time every
Speaker 1: movie now we've more you know, doubled, more doubled or
Speaker 1: more than double the size of the ensemble. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Civil War uh was you know, we definitely look, Joe
Speaker 1: and I have always thought about our creative process. We
Speaker 1: we've like analogized it to like being mad scientists, you know.
Speaker 1: We like to take desperate elements and kind of smashed
Speaker 1: them together in unusual ways and just see what that
Speaker 1: makes and see what that brings you creatively. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, starting with Civil War and certainly
Speaker 1: continuing through Infinity War, that has been the very process
Speaker 1: of like making these movies, because we have been taking
Speaker 1: these characters from different different films, different tones, different styles,
Speaker 1: and figuring out how do they exist in a single
Speaker 1: film together? What does that do to them when you
Speaker 1: mix them? And uh, yes, that's so I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we began that process in Civil War. Even that having
Speaker 1: been said, I mean, like I said, this is a
Speaker 1: movie with so many moving parts, so many threads to
Speaker 1: pull together. Uh. The most impressive thing to me is
Speaker 1: that the balance that you strike is so um, it's
Speaker 1: it's solid. I mean, there's there's no like everyone has
Speaker 1: not just their moment, but their ark. Everything feels full,
Speaker 1: it's not like things are just nominally dropped in because
Speaker 1: we want to get all these wold things in there.
Speaker 1: Like everything. The balance is really captivating to me. And
Speaker 1: it's maybe it's partly a screenwriting question, but you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that finding the balance when you
Speaker 1: have this many moving parts, and on top of that,
Speaker 1: I'm curious if there was ever a moment in the
Speaker 1: development where you know you just felt completely overwhelmed. Uh.
Speaker 1: We have a very disciplined process that um. That is
Speaker 1: part of our collaboration with Marks mcpheely. That involves getting
Speaker 1: in a room together, the four of us for months
Speaker 1: on end discussing story, character, potential arcs for characters. Where
Speaker 1: do we leave them last, Where do we want to
Speaker 1: leave them? What are we trying to say with the film.
Speaker 1: Thematics are really important to us. Usually we can't proceed
Speaker 1: with the story. And to understand the theme is that
Speaker 1: we're trying to trying to chase uh and I think
Speaker 1: you know this is it's an incredibly disciplined process, is
Speaker 1: one that Anthon I forged through years of producing television.
Speaker 1: It's got a bit of a writer's room approach to it.
Speaker 1: We have a screen, we have a computer, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said before, there's a hive mind in the room,
Speaker 1: and we're all collectively talking story and bouncing ideas off
Speaker 1: of each other. Um and we all have you know,
Speaker 1: war al Wolvers in the Marvel universe at this point.
Speaker 1: So the process is putting characters up on a board,
Speaker 1: discussing them in great detail, each one of them, talking
Speaker 1: about who fits in the story who doesn't. It's very
Speaker 1: important us that we find the characters who have the
Speaker 1: emotional connection to the a story on this movie. In particular,
Speaker 1: that that's Gomorrah Thor as well um want Vision and
Speaker 1: Wanda vision obviously because he's wearing one of the mcguffins,
Speaker 1: or he has one of the mcguffins in his head.
Speaker 1: Gomera has a pre existing relationship with Thanos. Thor has
Speaker 1: a vendetta against Thanos. So you know, you fish around,
Speaker 1: you find that that emotional connection to the villain, uh,
Speaker 1: and then you build in all the other characters around that. Tony.
Speaker 1: This is what's unique about this movie. The Kid could
Speaker 1: not have been made with eighteen films pretty seating it.
Speaker 1: It's just a it's a unique attempt at narrative in
Speaker 1: a way that you know, could only exist with with
Speaker 1: this giant mosaic preceding it. So the you know, Tony
Speaker 1: Stark has a history as a futurist. Um, he's got
Speaker 1: to you know, predicting uh, the end of the Earth
Speaker 1: and that that threat will come from space. So he
Speaker 1: already had a built an arc relating to Thanos. Even
Speaker 1: though he didn't identify him personally, he understand he understands
Speaker 1: what Thano say is and always knew this was coming.
Speaker 1: So this is just a payoff of an arc of his.
Speaker 1: It's it's a m I've been in play for for
Speaker 1: several years now. So that that's how we slowly pulled
Speaker 1: together the points of view and the story. Um. Once
Speaker 1: we have a script, we then sit in the room
Speaker 1: again for many many weeks, and we go through the
Speaker 1: script uh, and each day we spend time on each
Speaker 1: character just you know, like today's Tony Stark day. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna sit and read this gap from Tony Stark's
Speaker 1: point of view. The next days, uh Steve Rogers day,
Speaker 1: or to Child's day, and then you know you really
Speaker 1: combed through and go what do they want at the beginning?
Speaker 1: What are they getting by the end? Where there moments
Speaker 1: in the movie, what are we trying to say about
Speaker 1: the character? And so it's just like you just you know,
Speaker 1: it's a process just putting coat paint on the house
Speaker 1: after code of pain after code of pain. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know this is sort of kind of the well, actually
Speaker 1: the question about feeling overwhelmed, did you ever have moments
Speaker 1: where you have to just step away from this big
Speaker 1: board of all these threads and clear your head? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know it's surprisingly for me, the most overwhelming, uh
Speaker 1: part of it was just the very beginning. You know.
Speaker 1: We started the process by basically putting uh pictures of
Speaker 1: every single character in the m c U on the
Speaker 1: wall of our room with Bartus and mcpheley, and you know,
Speaker 1: just looking at them for days and weeks and stead
Speaker 1: of thinking about who we could play with, who we
Speaker 1: could pull forward where we can push pushed the characters.
Speaker 1: And I think just getting started was a little overwhelming
Speaker 1: because there were just so many possibilities. And I think
Speaker 1: once we did start, once we started to catch those
Speaker 1: emotional threads, like Joe was mentioning that, then of all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's sort of got much easier and
Speaker 1: it started to flow, and we started to have a
Speaker 1: have a have a narrative spine, and a and a
Speaker 1: theme and a concept that we were chasing. And then
Speaker 1: once that happened, then it certainly remained a lot of
Speaker 1: hard work, but it was no longer overwhelming. Yeah, this is,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the the m c U version
Speaker 1: of the Infinity Gauntless story obviously written by Jim Starlin,
Speaker 1: big product of a number of childhood's, my own included.
Speaker 1: I went back and read it again before the movie,
Speaker 1: just because just out of curiosity, you see what might
Speaker 1: be plucked trument or whatever. I'm always curious with comic
Speaker 1: book movies what kind of graphic inspiration comes from what's
Speaker 1: on the page? Like will will there be an attempt
Speaker 1: to duplicate a frame or something like that, something that
Speaker 1: might be iconic. I mean, there's Certainly the way the
Speaker 1: line Thanos is coming is handled is an interesting shift
Speaker 1: from the character that says it in the story. But uh,
Speaker 1: just as directors and trying to figure out visually how
Speaker 1: to tell the story, do you kind of look at
Speaker 1: frames and say this would be an interesting thing to
Speaker 1: lift or no, because the more I look at a
Speaker 1: lot of these movies, there's not a lot of that
Speaker 1: going on. There's some some and it depends that the
Speaker 1: director to director. And we grew up on comic books.
Speaker 1: We love them. I still have three thousand comic books
Speaker 1: in my closet, you know, so as they you know,
Speaker 1: we we are comic book fans. However, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: filmmaker is incredibly different media than than a book. And
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we're not telling the story of these books.
Speaker 1: We're telling the story of the Marvel Cinematic universe as
Speaker 1: it's been laid out over the last decade. So uh,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get trapped into trying to replicate
Speaker 1: specific story elements that don't correlate to what we've been
Speaker 1: doing in the Marvel Cinematic in so, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we will elicitly there are lines that inspire us, or
Speaker 1: there are frames that will put up in Civil War
Speaker 1: is a frame where famous frame from the book with
Speaker 1: with Tony blasting cap shield and we I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the only time maybe um aunt man, I'm hawkay zero,
Speaker 1: you know, so very rarely that we will actually go
Speaker 1: this is an amazing frame from the book. We gotta
Speaker 1: put this in the movie somewhere. I think there's one
Speaker 1: moment in this but it's not you know, it take
Speaker 1: you of you or two to catch. But it's when
Speaker 1: them t Chila punches. Um what we're who were calling
Speaker 1: cold City and but was black Door for the books
Speaker 1: and they've been run when Tony takes the shield than
Speaker 1: last thing, I'm un tightened. Oh yeah that image as well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, so they're but but yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say the image. We treat the images kind of like
Speaker 1: we treat the ideas that are in the books. Are
Speaker 1: the lines, like Joe was mentioning, they're all so they're
Speaker 1: all sort of exciting to us and are all valued
Speaker 1: by us. But you know, in the pro sense of
Speaker 1: telling an original story in the movie, you know, you
Speaker 1: can't really there's only a little bit of that that
Speaker 1: you can actually hang on to. Yeah, there's there's kind
Speaker 1: of subconscious things you can play with their like color palette.
Speaker 1: Do you look at the colors of what's in these
Speaker 1: books and say, you know, obviously the characters have their
Speaker 1: own schemes, but just environments and things. I asked Taka
Speaker 1: about this because his movie was such a big, kind
Speaker 1: of very colorful splash, but talk about that there's the
Speaker 1: colors a little it wasn't. I mean, specifically in Winter
Speaker 1: Soldier in Civil War. Those movies were of a piece
Speaker 1: for us because we were retoning and deconstructing Captain America
Speaker 1: and there were the intention was for them to be brutalist,
Speaker 1: devoid of color. We wanted them to be less comic
Speaker 1: bookie and more gritty and edgy and real. Um, so
Speaker 1: we were we were trying to simplify the color palette
Speaker 1: on those movies. Um. This film in particular, we didn't
Speaker 1: draw anything specifically from the books. But there's a very
Speaker 1: different film and it's in the point of view a
Speaker 1: Thanos is a giant purple alien, so uh, and you
Speaker 1: go to a lot of really exotic, cosmic location. So
Speaker 1: it's a much more colorful movie. And these color is
Speaker 1: a way to distinguish locations in the film. So the
Speaker 1: unclear understanding when you're one place and then when you
Speaker 1: had left that place and go on to another place
Speaker 1: of an incredible maybe the best production of that of
Speaker 1: the business right now. Gentleman named Charlie Woods, who who
Speaker 1: designed all of these exotic locations for us. So, um,
Speaker 1: we didn't really draw artistic inspiration from the books. We
Speaker 1: drew I think thematic and philosophical and uh inspiration as
Speaker 1: well as a couple of key lines. But it could
Speaker 1: we were. We are making so many distinct changes from
Speaker 1: the books. I think that's you know, really what we
Speaker 1: do is we tailor color and texture to the to
Speaker 1: the essence of the narrative that we're trying to tell,
Speaker 1: and very often that is significantly different than the book,
Speaker 1: you know. And then and then I think that's what
Speaker 1: leads us away from the from using relying on colors
Speaker 1: specifically from the books. Yeah, he started talking about Thanos there.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about Josh Brolin, who uh surprised me,
Speaker 1: and I only say that because I don't want to
Speaker 1: say I thought he would phone it in, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know what he would do with the performance. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if it would be something that would have
Speaker 1: the kind of depth that it has, and it's such
Speaker 1: an emotional performance. It's such a deep character that has
Speaker 1: just this overwhelming sense of melancholy. And I was really
Speaker 1: blown away by his work and just one amazing jan
Speaker 1: I mean, he's an extremely talented actor. I mean, he
Speaker 1: looked the and I think he was very excited by
Speaker 1: the opportunity to play somebody who had so much violence
Speaker 1: in him but also some shred of humanity as well.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know that that sort of
Speaker 1: that that that's very exciting for an actor, because it's
Speaker 1: such a complex thing to play, you know, to try
Speaker 1: to to try to bring mp empathy to a character
Speaker 1: that is is so evil, UM and the and he
Speaker 1: embraced that challenge and he ran with it. And I
Speaker 1: also think that he was very excited by the technology,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of you know, performing in a
Speaker 1: motion capture suit and sort of and us being able
Speaker 1: to build this fantastical creature CG creature, but based so
Speaker 1: specifically on his performance, his facial performance, his voice, his
Speaker 1: body movements, etcetera. UM, I think he really you know,
Speaker 1: we would analogize that sometimes it's almost like you're a
Speaker 1: puppeteer as as a performer, and you have to learn
Speaker 1: how you control the puppet, which is your CG representation
Speaker 1: of the character. And we spend a lot of time.
Speaker 1: We had we had a we had a Terry Notary
Speaker 1: worked on the film who's extremely one of the best
Speaker 1: movement people in the business. That he worked very closely
Speaker 1: with Josh to get him to understand the relationship between
Speaker 1: his movements and Thanos's movements. And they would practice quite
Speaker 1: a bit before we would get to shooting, so they
Speaker 1: got very comfortable with the character. So it's a very
Speaker 1: very involved process. And I think Josh was just excited
Speaker 1: by the whole proposition, and I think a one point
Speaker 1: he's turned us and he goes, oh my god, it
Speaker 1: feels like I'm into film. Are an acting school again,
Speaker 1: because you're really sort of bringing somebody into a place
Speaker 1: that almost feels like an acting exercise, or you're doing
Speaker 1: something you've never done before, your experimental figure. There's very
Speaker 1: few actors who combined who have that threat of violence
Speaker 1: and vulnerability at the same time as johsh does, So
Speaker 1: I don't know who else could play the part really, uh,
Speaker 1: And it was our intention to make him very complex,
Speaker 1: to have moments where you you know, weirdly empathize with
Speaker 1: the villain. We find that that makes for more interesting villains.
Speaker 1: In every villain as a hero in their own story.
Speaker 1: And this movie in particular is told from the point
Speaker 1: of view of the villain. I mean, you go look
Speaker 1: at the film and you you know, you want to
Speaker 1: do like a traditional structure breakdown of the movie. It
Speaker 1: all breaks down around Dan's character, not the heroes, um,
Speaker 1: which again was something we did just as a way
Speaker 1: to try to keep the storytelling fresh. Um. And we
Speaker 1: knew the have been so much build up behind this
Speaker 1: character that we really needed to describe him as a
Speaker 1: lot of story real estate in order for him to
Speaker 1: become that character that everyone was expecting. And along that
Speaker 1: the way we went ship let's just give him the story. Uh,
Speaker 1: it just seemed like, you know, we were creating elements
Speaker 1: around which the the the structure was breaking down around
Speaker 1: him anyways, or you know, grafting onto him. So uh,
Speaker 1: it's a unique film in that regard. And uh, and
Speaker 1: you know it is. It is his story and it's
Speaker 1: his ending. Let's talk a little bit about Chris Hemsworth
Speaker 1: and you know, kind of allowing Thor to sort of
Speaker 1: run away with this movie in a way in terms
Speaker 1: of certainly the humor which reaches back to you know,
Speaker 1: Tayka's world and finding just kind of discovering that Thor
Speaker 1: is is a humorous character. It can be a humorous character.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious what kind of input, if any type,
Speaker 1: might have had in this film as well. So Tycho
Speaker 1: was shooting while we were shooting, and that's a massive
Speaker 1: retne of the character. So we knew he was returning,
Speaker 1: so we had we we asked him and we're very
Speaker 1: close with tyka Um just on a personal level. So
Speaker 1: we just asked him to come down with Hemsworth and
Speaker 1: hang out with us in a room for a day
Speaker 1: with our writer's Marcus feelings, just talk about what they
Speaker 1: were doing, show us some of the dailies, uh, and
Speaker 1: so we could get a sense of where he was
Speaker 1: taking the character. Now it's still a more sobering, it's
Speaker 1: still a more sober interpretation of Thor, but it has
Speaker 1: that that element of of Ragnarok to it, that the
Speaker 1: absurdest element um uh. And he certainly has his jokes
Speaker 1: in the film. But for us, what we what we
Speaker 1: loved about the character was that he was you know,
Speaker 1: he really Thor has the hero's arc in the movie.
Speaker 1: If this movie belonged to the heroes. Um uh. If
Speaker 1: events didn't unfold the way that they did, it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's his film to win, that Thanics's film
Speaker 1: to win. Uh. And we like, again, just having grown
Speaker 1: up on comic book characters, Or was a favorite of
Speaker 1: mine growing up, it's a very powerful character. Uh. And
Speaker 1: when you're looking around the the condre of characters that
Speaker 1: we have who could defeat Panos, clearly Thor could. He's
Speaker 1: got a problem. He doesn't have his hammer, which is
Speaker 1: a huge part of his abilities. Um so um. We
Speaker 1: felt like because of what happens at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the film that you know, this is now a man
Speaker 1: without anyone, was a man without a country, uh and
Speaker 1: all all all he has in his heart as vengeance
Speaker 1: at this point. So it becomes this even though he's
Speaker 1: this absurd ast character, he now has this incredible pathos
Speaker 1: to him as well. On a drive and it's a
Speaker 1: weird combination of tone that seems to really resonate with
Speaker 1: the audience. He's an underdog. You want him to succeed
Speaker 1: because there's nothing left for him to do but succeed.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because Joe mentioned earlier, you know, we we
Speaker 1: do have a we do tend to enjoy deconstruction, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's an analogy I think between Thor and
Speaker 1: Captain America, you know, the the idea of stripping everything
Speaker 1: away from somebody, you know, caps sort of waking up
Speaker 1: in the modern world and and realizing he's not in
Speaker 1: sync with the country he's he's been serving any longer, etcetera,
Speaker 1: and sort of leaving him at the end of the
Speaker 1: Civil War where you know, he puts down the Shield
Speaker 1: and Thor I think had a similar movement and losing
Speaker 1: asgard And it's like there's something happens when you start
Speaker 1: to tear away all the sort of elements of a
Speaker 1: superhero and then who are you left? What's the human
Speaker 1: being you're left with after that? And I think that
Speaker 1: was something that was very attractive to us in this
Speaker 1: story that we could explore Thor on that level, because look,
Speaker 1: these characters have such remarkable powers. Um you know, we
Speaker 1: always looked to is where their vulnerabilities and and quite
Speaker 1: usually their vulnavabilities are are have to do with their
Speaker 1: emotional life, for their psychology, where are they in their lives?
Speaker 1: What's happened to them? And Thor between the events of
Speaker 1: the end of Ragnarok and the things that opened this film,
Speaker 1: Thor was an incredibly vulnerable place. Uh, and that was
Speaker 1: it's very juicy for us on a storytelling level. By
Speaker 1: the way, what's the dynamic like on set with you guys?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, directing duos, everybody has their own
Speaker 1: way of going about things. Just walk me through, like
Speaker 1: how how you work through a scene together? Well, it's
Speaker 1: the same way we handle an interview like this. It's
Speaker 1: just trading off. Uh. You know, we we believe that
Speaker 1: the you know, um that you know, two minds aren't
Speaker 1: doubly better than one mind, they're exponentially better. So we
Speaker 1: want both our brains on everything. It's part of our
Speaker 1: our process is uh is you know, we don't divide
Speaker 1: things up. One of us doesn't have the camera, the
Speaker 1: other talk to the actors. We both do that. We
Speaker 1: both have notes for them, we confer with and then
Speaker 1: one of us gets out of the chair and goes
Speaker 1: in approach to the actors. Um. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: a very informal process. There's no real definition to it. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's certainly keeping ourselves um um inspired and engaged. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the best idea wins that every idea significantly
Speaker 1: um by you know, you know, arguing through the best
Speaker 1: path forward. Uh and typically um we find you know,
Speaker 1: you know, through that debate, we tend to find the
Speaker 1: best answer for us. Yeah, anyone ever try to play
Speaker 1: you against each other? Not successfully? Yeah, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: waiting a little into spoilers, but not too much. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the end of this film is quite dark,
Speaker 1: boldly so for a popcorn summer you know, blockbuster like this. Uh,
Speaker 1: which is that exactly why we did it? Normally I
Speaker 1: would ask, you know, was there pushback? But obviously Marvel
Speaker 1: is very attuned the story they're trying to tell. So
Speaker 1: why do you think Marvel is so comfortable with leaving
Speaker 1: a movie hanging in such a dark matter? Is this?
Speaker 1: I mean, look again, it's sort of the same idea
Speaker 1: that when you're dealing with these very powerful characters, they
Speaker 1: don't become interesting, they don't become human, they don't become relatable,
Speaker 1: and they don't become rootable until there, until you find
Speaker 1: their vulnerabilities. So I think it's a very similar concept
Speaker 1: in that you don't unless you have real steaks, you're
Speaker 1: sort of limited in terms of what the emotional impact
Speaker 1: a story can have on you. Um so, and these
Speaker 1: movies have been living now for a while, so you
Speaker 1: have to go to very difficult places in order for
Speaker 1: these things to feel, the stakes to feel real, for
Speaker 1: the characters to feel like they have something to lose,
Speaker 1: for the audiences to feel like they have something at
Speaker 1: risk in the films. And I think that's really it is,
Speaker 1: like we don't you know, we go to these films.
Speaker 1: I think we're what we're looking for in storytelling or
Speaker 1: an artist like emotional Catharsis, and you can arrive at tharcists.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not simply just getting what you want.
Speaker 1: It's getting it. It's getting an emotional experience that makes
Speaker 1: you feel and respond to it and and energizes you
Speaker 1: on some level. And yeah, sometimes that can be difficult ideas,
Speaker 1: you know. I think what that's one virtue of fantasy
Speaker 1: films is that you can sometimes you can deal with
Speaker 1: with with difficult ideas more freely in a fantasy film
Speaker 1: than you can in a movie that's more realistic because
Speaker 1: it's a little it's a safer zone to play in
Speaker 1: for people. You know, it doesn't it doesn't necessarily, it's
Speaker 1: because it's one stuff removed from something they may have experienced.
Speaker 1: You can sort of swim in ideas and emotions that
Speaker 1: might be more uncomfortable if they were too realistic. We've
Speaker 1: learned over the years as filmmakers that you know, we
Speaker 1: do our best work with our when we follow our
Speaker 1: instincts and we tell the story that we want to tell.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've had one or two experiences early
Speaker 1: in our careers where we didn't do that, and we
Speaker 1: learned a very hard less and that you know, when
Speaker 1: you try to predict what an audience wants, you're gonna
Speaker 1: make mush. And when you try to tell, when you tell,
Speaker 1: when you commit to telling the story that you want
Speaker 1: to tell them to hope everybody likes, it, tends to
Speaker 1: have a much more, a much more resonant um um
Speaker 1: impact on the audience. When we started working with Marvel
Speaker 1: and Winter Soldier, we wanted to do such a radical
Speaker 1: departure from their first film because we said, you know,
Speaker 1: the characters moving forward in time, the interpretation of that
Speaker 1: character that we're interested in is much more edgy and
Speaker 1: modern than what you've done on the last one. And
Speaker 1: they said, great, do it, let's see what happens. And
Speaker 1: so they've always been risk takers, I think. And and
Speaker 1: something we used to say all the time as a
Speaker 1: mantra to them about why we should take risks is
Speaker 1: you know, the audience can tell you they love chocolate
Speaker 1: ice cream. You give them to them every day, they
Speaker 1: get sick of it real fast, and then you get
Speaker 1: sick of it before you know it. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I got you know, three three chocolate ice creams waiting
Speaker 1: to go, and you know, and they don't want it anymore.
Speaker 1: So you've got to stay ahead of them. And uh
Speaker 1: and and they can't be they shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: predict where you're going. Uh And surprises aren't important for that.
Speaker 1: And so if you look at every film that we've
Speaker 1: done from Marvel, Winter Soldier at a huge game changing
Speaker 1: event at the end of the movie. Civil War had
Speaker 1: a huge game changing event at the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: and Infinity War is a huge game changing event at
Speaker 1: the end of the movie. We are interested in pushing
Speaker 1: the boundaries and pushing the story for it in unexpected ways,
Speaker 1: surprising the audience as much as we can and uh
Speaker 1: and as Ann said, creating a cathartic experience for them,
Speaker 1: because ultimately it creates a cathartic experience for us as artists,
Speaker 1: and it's the only thing that gets us out of
Speaker 1: that every day. That's sort of dove tails with this
Speaker 1: question which I was talking to you off off the
Speaker 1: air earlier. But you know, I won't I won't name names,
Speaker 1: but certain characters appear to perish at the end of
Speaker 1: this movie, and I'm cure I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: just striking the balance between a definitive notion of finality
Speaker 1: if there is such a thing with a movie like this,
Speaker 1: and you know, the age old uh element of comic
Speaker 1: book characters coming back to life, Because there are certain
Speaker 1: characters that appear to parash at the end of this movie,
Speaker 1: and I have to imagine your fan base is thinking
Speaker 1: they're not gone. They can't be gone, because they're aware
Speaker 1: of the business and sequels that are presumably still in
Speaker 1: the mix. And you know, is there a worry of
Speaker 1: And I don't know where you're going with it either.
Speaker 1: That's That's where I'm going to disadvantage. You're asking this question,
Speaker 1: but is there any kind of a worry of insulting
Speaker 1: a fan bases intelligence that by it not seeming real,
Speaker 1: but by them thinking, oh, well, there's no way this
Speaker 1: character has gone Well, I can't. Here's the thing, it's hard,
Speaker 1: it's hard to answer that question specifically without getting in
Speaker 1: spoiler areas. But I will see this. There is a
Speaker 1: real commitment on our end to to the stakes, you know,
Speaker 1: and yes, this is a fantasy world, and yes, remarkable
Speaker 1: things that can happen in a fantasy world, but some
Speaker 1: of those stakes are they come into incredibly high cost,
Speaker 1: so they are for us. There will always be steakes,
Speaker 1: and the stakes have been progressing from film to film
Speaker 1: with us, from Winter Soldiers, Civil War, during Finny War,
Speaker 1: and I think you extrapolate that they will continue to
Speaker 1: to deepen and Avengers, for that's the thing. You have
Speaker 1: a whole other movie to kind of wrap this story up.
Speaker 1: So I'm at this disadvantage. But when you when you
Speaker 1: end a movie like that, it just it raises a
Speaker 1: ton of questions, which I guess is the idea right,
Speaker 1: and especially to your point of unpredictability. Uh, Ultimately, this
Speaker 1: movie is this the one that pulls all these various
Speaker 1: strands together. It's kind of the apotheosis in a way
Speaker 1: of like the Marvel Studios brand, right, It's it's like
Speaker 1: this culmination. It's big. To put a fine point on it,
Speaker 1: I guess my question is can it get even bigger?
Speaker 1: And do you expect it to? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't. We never think in terms of
Speaker 1: big I guess yeah. We think in terms of what's
Speaker 1: the story? And a culmination story of eighteen film and
Speaker 1: a bunch of successful franchises is naturally of a certain scale. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, the ambition of Infinity War
Speaker 1: in particular was to put them all on screen together,
Speaker 1: working together against the common enemy. And then you know
Speaker 1: Avengers for us a different ambition. Uh So, so I
Speaker 1: don't think that, you know, if you ever think in
Speaker 1: terms of like outdoing, I think you tend to trip
Speaker 1: over your own two feet. Uh. You really have to
Speaker 1: commit to what is a narrative here? What story we're
Speaker 1: trying to tell? What is it required to tell that story?
Speaker 1: I think it happened, naturally happened that you know, Civil
Speaker 1: War is bigger than Winter Soldier and Infinity Wars brul
Speaker 1: in Civil War only because the story of slowly pulling
Speaker 1: the universe together was increasing as it went. Uh. And
Speaker 1: but that's not a mandate that we can follow as filmmakers.
Speaker 1: The path that leads to to know where I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's all these new toys essentially to play with now
Speaker 1: as well with the Fox deal. So is there a
Speaker 1: place to introduce the X Men? Is there a place
Speaker 1: to introduce Fantastic for I mean, I feel like a
Speaker 1: movie like Infinity War, it's not suffering for the lack
Speaker 1: of Silver Surfer, but you certainly those who know Infinity
Speaker 1: Gaunt Win are like, Silver Surfer would be cool in
Speaker 1: this movie. So you know, is there is there a
Speaker 1: room for that going forward? Well, we're that look at
Speaker 1: I think just as far as we're that specific deal
Speaker 1: is at right now, it's still it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: not at the point where you you know, we can
Speaker 1: start working with those characters on a creative level yet.
Speaker 1: So you know, we are we again, we are Leah exactly.
Speaker 1: We'd love to and hopefully we'll all work out someday,
Speaker 1: but it's not in the timeframe of these movies that
Speaker 1: we're making right now. You guys have certainly gotten people
Speaker 1: excited just by mentioning those two words secret Wars. You know,
Speaker 1: so that's a big comic for me. Yeah. Same. You
Speaker 1: have the action figures. Yeah, I had every I had
Speaker 1: all of it. I mean it was a that I
Speaker 1: think that was probably the most important book to me. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go. Hopefully we can see something like that
Speaker 1: in the future on the big screen. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask, this is obviously the culmination of
Speaker 1: ten years of effort, and Marvel's got something figured out.
Speaker 1: Kevin five, He's got something figured out. You guys have
Speaker 1: got something figured out. Uh. Others who may be trying
Speaker 1: to make cinematic universes might be struggling. What kind of
Speaker 1: advice would you give to someone trying to pull off
Speaker 1: what Marvel Studios pulled off over the last to do it?
Speaker 1: Not everything? Not everything can be sustained through a cinematic universe.
Speaker 1: I do think serialize it. I think that all of this.
Speaker 1: I think that Netflix, Marvel, Star Wars, what's going on
Speaker 1: in the business right now, this massive moment of disruption
Speaker 1: that we're in, It is really a function of audiences
Speaker 1: craving new kinds of storytelling. And I do think that
Speaker 1: we a really nice run for a hundred years of
Speaker 1: two hour, two dimensional storytelling. But I think over the
Speaker 1: next decade two decade and a half, you're going to
Speaker 1: see a radical shift and ow stories are told. I
Speaker 1: would argue that Netflix dumping ten episodes of a show
Speaker 1: on a Friday is a new form of narrative. It
Speaker 1: there's a ten hour narrative and you can choose to
Speaker 1: watch it at your leisure. But that's why I think
Speaker 1: it's so exciting to people, because it's another way to
Speaker 1: digest content and that structure is less predictive to them.
Speaker 1: We have seen so much content that any that every
Speaker 1: you know, every average movie goer, it has a level
Speaker 1: of sophistication and respect to um their ability to predict
Speaker 1: what is going to happen in a movie. Which is
Speaker 1: why Anthon I spent a lot of time trying to
Speaker 1: hide the secrets of this film, m direct through the
Speaker 1: way the trailers were cut, misdirect with information. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just too easy for them to intuit what is
Speaker 1: going to happen. And I think that you know, a
Speaker 1: universe is a new form of Storytelling's a giant mosaics.
Speaker 1: I've ever done this before. This is unprecedented what Marvel
Speaker 1: has done these, especially with some of um so many
Speaker 1: successful franchises UH and film Like if any war could
Speaker 1: not happen without this giant mosaic behind it, where you
Speaker 1: have all this pre existing emotional interest in the characters.
Speaker 1: You know, if we had to tell all those stories
Speaker 1: and all their stories and introduce all those characters from
Speaker 1: on film, it's absolutely impossible. So I do think that
Speaker 1: what I would encourage people to do. The advice would
Speaker 1: be to continue to look for new ways to tell stories,
Speaker 1: because I think the audience is open to it, and
Speaker 1: I think that you know, there's traditionally a generational divide,
Speaker 1: but I think that this new generation is more is
Speaker 1: going to move an advanced storytelling in a way that
Speaker 1: we haven't seen in a long time because of the
Speaker 1: tech advancements in their lives and the way that they
Speaker 1: are used to digest and content on YouTube and social
Speaker 1: media and much more compressed formats. They're more facile and
Speaker 1: fluid UH, And they like emotional commitment, to long term
Speaker 1: emotional commitment. But there's lots of ways to engender that
Speaker 1: that don't do not involve building out a universe, and
Speaker 1: you know you mentioned that Netflix there, obviously Marvel has
Speaker 1: properties there. Actually wanted to ask you guys, was there
Speaker 1: ever any discussion. I know there's a it's two different
Speaker 1: sides of the coin over there, TV and film, but
Speaker 1: was there ever any discussion about bringing some of these
Speaker 1: TV characters into the fold for the Avengers? We made
Speaker 1: the briefest consideration of it, but it was really just
Speaker 1: you know, in our process of like we when we
Speaker 1: were alone in a room with Marcus and mcphey, we
Speaker 1: consider every idea you could possibly you know, it's like
Speaker 1: we like thinking of everything. But it seemed like we
Speaker 1: had the story that had been told within the cinematic universe.
Speaker 1: It was so within the movies. It was so specific
Speaker 1: and so elaborate already that once we started working through
Speaker 1: the story, we knew our we had our handsful just
Speaker 1: with this set of characters, in this set of narratives.
Speaker 1: So it was the briefest of consideration too. And are
Speaker 1: you guys expecting to stick around after this fourth Avengage movie?
Speaker 1: Gonna stay with Marvel? Because that was a curiosity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a great We've had the best experience for
Speaker 1: our careers with Marvel. We had a great relationship with
Speaker 1: them and we love telling these stories. They're very important
Speaker 1: to us. So really be a function about what is
Speaker 1: that story if we do stick around. Certainly it's enticing
Speaker 1: when you know all these new Fox characters will show up.
Speaker 1: There's a very complex universe that can continue to build out.
Speaker 1: We also have very personal movies that we want to
Speaker 1: go make, but we're workaholics, and you know, we tend
Speaker 1: to put a lot on our plates and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we can tell our personal stories and and
Speaker 1: tell some more big stories with Marvel as well. I
Speaker 1: think it's room for all of it. And the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about those new the Fox properties is not that
Speaker 1: I'm pitching for a spot in the writer's room, but
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an interesting way you could handle it,
Speaker 1: Like this was the build to the team up right
Speaker 1: well and stuff like that. You could throw them into
Speaker 1: the mix, do the reverse. You've got the team up,
Speaker 1: and then you can build out separate stories about the
Speaker 1: X Men, Fantastic Fource Solar Surfer after that. So it's
Speaker 1: almost a way you can experiment with the reverse of
Speaker 1: what's happened over the last decades. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun stuff you can do. I like the way you
Speaker 1: think it sounds good. Well how your people call my people? Right?
Speaker 1: All right? That's the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe. The
Speaker 1: movie is called Avengers Affinity War Again. If you haven't
Speaker 1: heard about it, what the hell go see it. If
Speaker 1: you haven't yet, you'll love it. I loved it. I
Speaker 1: thought it was again fantastic balancing act. So hat hats
Speaker 1: off to you both, and thank you again for doing
Speaker 1: the show. Bud Sho