In case you’re unaware, the already prodigious and busy Russo Brothers (“The Gray Man,” “Cherry“), who already run the independent studio AGBO have their own podcast with Pizza Film School. A recent guest on their latest episode was fellow director Zack Snyder (“Man of Steel“), who, like the sibling duo, is also making rather large film projects over at Netflix. During their chat on the podcast, they ended up discussing the new “golden age of TV” and the current modern wave of television, describing it as disruptive to the cinematic experience. Snyder went on to praise recent popular shows like HBO‘s “Euphoria” and Netflix’s Korean mega-hit suspenseful genre series “Squid Game” being near-perfect for the television medium. While the Russos seemed 100% on board with everything he was saying, Snyder suggested shows like the aforementioned series might not have gotten made or found an audience if they were developed as theatrical feature films because they are seen as simply risker to an audience than a traditional film.
“I think we’re in a real golden age of TV in the sense that TV shows are much better at showing you something that you’ve never seen before or catching you off balance or making a turn that you didn’t see coming…They’re way riskier,” Snyder said of the modern era of television, with the Russo brothers vehemently agreeing during their conversation.
“‘Euphoria,’ for instance, I was just watching the show is just unbelievable,” he continued. “That show shouldn’t exist; it’s so good. And that’s the kind of thing I watch that show and go, ‘This movie would never get made; this movie can’t exist.’ You could imagine ‘Squid Games’ coming here as a movie would be an arthouse [thing], maybe. ‘Euphoria’ and ‘Squid Game’ take you to places where you have no idea where you are going or what’s happening, and I think that’s what people want.”
Co-host Joe Russo also chimed in with his own take. “But why I think you’re saying TV is now in a golden age is that it is disrupting from a format standpoint,” he explained. “It’s ten hours of content; it’s eight hours of content. You get a different emotional impact killing a character five hours into a ten-hour story because you’ve spent five hours with that character versus an hour. It’s just different. You’ve assigned more of your time, you have more investment, and when that character goes, you feel it because of that investment.”
It’s not that surprising that the Russos share this sentiment alongside Snyder, given they’re getting into the television business with the streaming series “Citadel” for Amazon. A high-profile and expensive spy series, “Citadel” features an impressive cast that includes Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Stanley Tucci. Something that easily could have been a feature film instead.
Beyond their own directing projects, The Russo Brothers have been making quite the splash as producers of recent. They were involved and backed the recent Best Picture Oscar winner “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and are behind the upcoming Sam Hargrave-directed action sequel, “Extraction 2,” which stars Marvel hunk, Chris Hemsworth. Other things they’ve been trying to get together at AGBO include a feature film based on the beloved sci-fi adventure anime “Battle of The Planets” and a modern remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair” with Michael B. Jordan (“Creed III“) attached for the titular role at MGM/Amazon.
Meanwhile, Snyder is making quite the creative nest at Netflix with his two-parter “Rebel Moon” sci-film film set to release in December. He is also already developing his sequel to the alien/zombie hybrid action pic “Army of The Dead,” with “Planet of The Dead” expected to be the next big original film project to go in front of cameras. Netflix is also said to be game for subsequent installments set in his “Rebel Moon” universe, and there are early rumblings that the two are sparking up a third unnamed live-action franchise starter at the streamer.
You can watch that full episode of their chat below.