The Russo Brothers open to returning to the MCU to adapt Secret Wars

The directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame are taking a break from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but would return to adapt this classic comics story.

Joe and Anthony Russo are superhero royalty by this point, having directed four movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including showstoppers Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. They’re taking a break from the MCU for now, but I think of fans are expecting them to return eventually, if they have the right story to direct.

That story, according to BroBible, is the 80’s-era comics crossover series Secret Wars. “I read that when I was 10 or 11, and it was the scale of getting all of the heroes together,” said Joe Russo. “It was one of the first major books to do that — that was really event-storytelling to me at its finest.”

For those unfamiliar, Secret Wars saw most of the heroes and villains in the Marvel Universe transported to the fictional Battleworld by the Beyonder, an infinitely powerful entity who pits our favorite characters against each other to study them. Beyonder offers to grant the desires of whomever emerges victorious, be it hero or villain, leading to some strange bedfellows. “I also like the idea of villains having to team up with heroes,” Joe continued. “Anth 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.”

Anthony, meanwhile, calls this hypothetical Secret Wars film “the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story – the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga.”

The scope of a Secret Wars story would certainly be enormous, but it wouldn’t require the decade-long buildup that culminated in Endgame, as the heroes and villains could simply be dropped onto Battleworld and allowed to go at it. On the flip side, a story with this massive cast would probably call for more than one film.

Personally, I always found Secret Wars a bit gimmicky. Even its architect, Jim Shooter, has said that its main goal was to help Marvel sell a line of action figures from Mattel.

Either way, given the Russo Brothers’ track record, it’s hard to see them not turning any idea into a massive hit.

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h/t GamesRadar