You would think that after the incredible reception that “Avengers: Infinity War” has received since its release last weekend, with record-breaking box office totals, that directors Joe and Anthony Russo would be the first to say that shared universes are the way to go. But that’s not the case, at all. In fact, they would actually warn against them.
In an interview on the Playback podcast (via Variety), Joe Russo has a warning for those people interested in building a cinematic universe.
“Yeah, don’t do it,” Joe Russo says. “Not everything can be sustained through a cinematic universe.”
And if you look at the results of other studios trying to replicate what Marvel Studios has been able to accomplish, then you’d see that Joe Russo is actually right. In fact, so far, almost every attempt at a shared universe has failed pretty spectacularly, outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Russo Brothers don’t see the shared universe as the way to go. Instead, they say it’s the public’s love of serialized content that has propelled the popularity of the superhero universe, as well as services like Netflix.
“I think all of this — Netflix, Marvel, ‘Star Wars,’ this massive moment of disruption we’re in — is really a function of audiences craving new kinds of storytelling,” Russo says. “I think we had a really nice run for 100 years of two-hour, two-dimensional storytelling, but I think over the next decade, decade-and-a-half, you’re going to see a radical shift in how stories are told.”
Why are people flocking to this new form of storytelling in film and TV? It’s unpredictable. The Russos talk about how people are too savvy for standard storytelling. Nowadays, you have to do something new and different to actually surprise fans.
“It’s another way to digest content, and that structure is less predictive to them,” he says. “We have seen so much content that every average moviegoer has a level of sophistication in their ability to predict what is going to happen in a movie, which is why Anthony and I spent a lot of time trying to hide the secrets of [‘Avengers: Infinity War’], misdirect the way the trailers were cut, misdirect with information. It’s too easy for them to intuit what is going to happen.”
So, if they don’t recommend shared universes and think that the old way of structuring stories is passé, then what would the two directors’ advice be for filmmakers trying to break the mold and try something new?
“The advice would be to continue to look for new ways to tell stories, because I think the audience is open to it,” Joe Russo continues. “There is traditionally a generational divide, but I think this new generation is going to advance storytelling in a way we haven’t seen in a long time because of the tech advancements in their lives and the way they are used to digesting content on YouTube and social media in much more compressed formats, more facile, fluid. And they like long-term emotional commitment, but there’s lots of ways to engender that that do not involve building out a universe.”
The entire conversation is well worth the listen if you’re one of those film fans wondering what the future holds for the medium. The Russo Brothers seem to be some of the more forward-thinking filmmakers working in the mainstream today.
