Latest news with #Russos
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Thor Rumor Has Me Nervous About Chris Hemsworth's Return In Avengers: Doomsday
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Hot on the heels of the release date of Avengers: Doomsday being marked for December 2026, another big rumor is making the rounds about the big movie coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time the chatter is all about Chris Hemsworth's Thor, and what the Russos have planned for one of the biggest OG actors in the Disney-owned franchise. If readers were psyched for the upcoming Marvel movie to hit theaters, this latest rumor from SuperHeroHype might give them pause. We've heard a lot of chatter about heroes who will fall when taking on Robert Downey Jr's Doctor Doom, and it looks like the God of Thunder might take a big fall when facing the supervillain. Chris Hemsworth was one of the few OG Avengers who escaped the Infinity War and Endgame unscathed, as we saw Black Widow and Iron Man die, and Captain America become far too old to keep his mantle. It's being rumored now that Marvel Studios has plans to give Thor a big send-off, and that it will happen either in Doomsday or Secret Wars. While there are no specifics as to how this will happen, one has to assume that death is on the table. Doctor Doom killing off Thor would be a major win for the villain, and an easy way for the Russos to pull on the heartstrings of longtime Marvel fans. There is no confirmation that this will happen, though it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility, given how the last major Avengers movies went. The good news about Thor potentially dying in Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars is that no one in the Marvel universe can stay dead forever. We could always see Chris Hemsworth's Thor return in the future through some weird resurrection twist, so if he's willing to do more movies, Thor can always live on. More On Thor A Case For Why The First Thor Movie Is Still The Best Thor Movie Even if Thor is dead, there's always a chance that Marvel could opt to do a movie set in Valhalla. The Viking afterlife was seen in Thor: Love And Thunder, and could very well be the backdrop for a future adventure in the franchise. Wouldn't it be cool to see him back in the saddle and able to team up with Jane, Heimdall, Odin, and even Loki for another adventure? Let's also remember another warrior who died in battle who might be in Valhalla: Tony Stark. Imagine if, in some way, Thor can battle his way back from the afterlife with Iron Man and take down Doctor Doom together. That said, I'm just trying to make people feel better about the very realistic scenario of Thor possibly being killed off; we may not see Chris Hemsworth do another Marvel movie after he finally hangs up the hammer. It'll be quite a bit of time before we see what happens in Avengers: Doomsday. Until then, expect to see a lot more rumors about who may be involved and what may happen, and hopefully, we can avoid some leaks that spoil the movie for everyone.
Geek Tyrant
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
The Russo Bros. Confirm They Shot the THUNDERBOLTS* Post-Credits Scene — GeekTyrant
The final moments of Thunderbolts* left Marvel fans excited about the future of the MCU, and now we know for sure that the great post-credits scene wasn't helmed by Thunderbolts* was directed by none other than Avengers: Doomsday filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo. Taking to Instagram, the directors wrote: 'If you haven't seen Thunderbolts … Go now! @jakeschreier made a fantastic film! Congratulations to the entire cast and crew. And make sure to stay until the very end of the credits… we left you a little something.' That 'little something' is a big MCU handoff. Set about a year after the events of Thunderbolts* , the scene shows the now-official "New Avengers" returning to their base, Val's remodeled Avengers Tower, now dubbed the Watchtower. There's internal tension as Sam Wilson has legally filed to copyright the name 'Avengers,' causing friction with Bucky Barnes. But that squabble gets quickly overshadowed by the arrival of The Fantastic Four's interdimensional ship. Director Jake Schreier also talked to Variety about the Russos directing the scene, adding: 'That was shot maybe four weeks ago, and I did not direct that. That's the Russos on the set of Avengers: Doomsday. I got to be there, which was very fun, to watch your buddies go on to this grander scale.' Most fans assumed the post-credit sequence was directed by the Russos. Schreier went on to say that Avengers: Doomsday hadn't even started filming when the stinger was shot, saying: 'I got to see drafts, for sure. We all worked on the scene just to make sure that it was honest to where our characters were. But also, you're giving them over to this whole new world and new scope, and you want them to function in that way. It was fun to see them directed in another context and on a different level of scope than we had been treating it.' Avengers: Doomsday has officially begun production, and I'm excited about what it's going to give us!
Forbes
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Post-‘Electric State,' The Russos Find Amazon's ‘Citadel' In Trouble
Citadel It has not been a good month for the Russo Brothers, the upcoming directors of the new Avengers movies, but a pair with quite bad luck outside of the MCU. Their Netflix The Electric State blockbuster debuted with shockingly poor critic scores (a 15% on RT) and does not seem to be putting up the kind of numbers that justify its $320 million budget, making it one of the most expensive films ever made. But now we can hop over to the show they produced for Amazon, Citadel, which you guessed it, had one of the most expensive first seasons of any show ever at a reported $225-300 million, which would be second only to Amazon's The Rings of Power. Citadel was supposed to spawn an entire network of linked series, and while a few of those did make it out and the original got a season 2 renewal, The Hollywood Reporter now says that things are 'in flux.' Citadel Currently, Citadel season 2, which was supposed to be out in late 2025 has apparently been pushed to Spring 2026. In addition to that, all other Citadel spin-offs have been paused, maybe until after season 2, maybe indefinitely. Supposedly Amazon is not happy with season 2, though they have not commented on that report. While Citadel did not get utterly shredded by critics like The Electric State, the end result of the Richard Madden/Priyanka Chopra spy series was that it was…fine. It had a coinflip 51% critic score and an okay, not great 62% audience score. Its spin-offs were actually better received, for the most part. But that's the problem, you don't really want the second most-expensive show in history to be 'fine.' Citadel did not reach the highs of other Amazon hits, cheaper productions that range from Invincible to The Boys to Reacher. But its other big-budget series is not doing great either, with Rings of Power's viewership reportedly cut in half for season 2. The point being, throwing money at projects isn't necessarily a golden ticket. If Amazon is unhappy with season 2 of Citadel and season 1 was not all the great to begin with, this idea that the series is going to launch into some popular, sprawling spy universe for the service seems in doubt. Not that it ever really seemed destined to happen, but now more than ever, it does not seem like it will work out. There was at least one bright spot for the Russos this week, as even if it was oddly formatted and the casting was picked apart, the chair-based reveal of the Avengers: Doomsday cast was the most watched Marvel livestream ever by far with 275 million views over the five hours. It is still the case that despite these other endeavors, the Russos have not made a bad MCU movie yet, and maybe that's the universe where they simply have the magic touch. But outside of that? Apparently not. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
$320 Million Can't Buy You Into the Zeitgeist
Joe and Anthony Russo, better known as the Russo brothers, have enjoyed two of the most lucrative careers in Hollywood. The bulk of their success comes from the features they've co-directed for Marvel: Three of those projects, in which they helped turn comic-book characters into icons and 'cinematic universes' into a standard practice, are among the 50 highest-grossing movies of all time. Two of them—Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame—made more than $2 billion at the box office globally. Apart from James Cameron, they're the only directors to have crossed that milestone at least twice. Judging by their filmography since Endgame, though, it's unlikely that the Russos will do so for a third time—at least, not without the Avengers. The astronomical budgets the pair have commanded over the past half decade have not yielded Hulk-size cultural footprints: Netflix, which began green-lighting expensive movies to help build its own franchises, stated that the Russos' $200 million spy thriller The Gray Man topped its most-watched list for two weeks. But neither the film nor Ryan Gosling's assassin protagonist has lingered in the public memory. Citadel, the Prime Video series the Russos produced, is one of the priciest shows ever made, at more than $300 million for its first season. Conceived by an Amazon executive, Citadel was meant to kick-start a 'global franchise,' but it barely made an impression with viewers; in its first month of availability, the show never entered Nielsen's Top 10 streaming rankings. Without Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Russos' work has become formulaic and ephemeral. Ambitious studios, it seems, can't simply buy their way into the zeitgeist. Yet here the Russos are again, with another exorbitant attempt to establish a new blockbuster series. The Electric State, now on Netflix, is a $320 million adaptation of Simon Stalenhåg's graphic novel about a girl who, joined by an intelligent robot, searches for her brother across a retro-futuristic, dystopian America. Some of that money has evidently been put to good use: The visual effects are seamless, the robot designs are genuinely cool, and the set dressing is meticulous. The cast, too, is stacked: Holly Hunter, Colman Domingo, and Brian Cox pop up. Their roles, though, are so absurdly small that they suggest heavy reshoots and excised footage. [Read: What Avengers: Endgame's historic box office means for the future] Hollywood studios granting massive funds to directors who have made box-office hits is a common practice—especially for projects that appear likely to return on the investment. But the Russos have become unusually adept at demonstrating the creative limitations of those piles of cash. Companies have made clear their desire to generate fresh cinematic universes, and Stalenhåg's book is an excellent starting point for an expansive film adaptation: His evocative artwork explores lands that practically beg to be rendered on the big screen, and his heroine's quest is filled with pathos. Anthony Russo himself said, during a panel at New York Comic Con last October, that he and his brother were excited 'to figure out what kind of story we can tell in this world.' The story they tell, however, replaces the originality of Stalenhåg's book with algorithm-friendly, inelegant slop. The Russos reduce the graphic novel's haunting and macabre tale down to a clichéd battle between unethical humans and sentient machines, in which the latter tried to assert their rights and lost; it's a generic good-versus-evil setup not unlike those found in The Gray Man and Citadel. Millie Bobby Brown—the closest thing Netflix has to an in-house star—plays Michelle, a teenager sympathetic to the automatons' plight who rallies a group of misfits to dethrone a heartless tech mogul, Ethan (Stanley Tucci), who believes that humans and robots shouldn't coexist. Ethan wants to give people the edge by hooking them up to the virtual-reality headsets he invented; Michelle would like everyone to log off and touch some grass. What Michelle and Ethan do have in common is that they're both one-dimensional archetypes with tragic backstories. The film around them is equally bland. The Electric State is so transparently eager to satisfy as many demographics of viewers as possible that it proves its own message: that a world dependent on business interests and technological optimization dulls artistic potential and human ingenuity. All that's left is a wasteland of half-baked ideas searching for a home. [Read: 'Netflix thinks exactly like an old movie studio'] There's a self-conscious streak to The Electric State that renders it inert from the start. The Russos populate the cast with big names (and Marvel standbys) such as Chris Pratt and Anthony Mackie, actors whose chemistry with each other almost distracts from the weak storytelling. Michelle resembles the protagonists of 2010s young-adult films, complete with pithy lines ('I have a condition where I can only live in reality,' she scoffs) and a signature hairdo. Each character is meant to be easy to root for or against, which forces them to be simplistic; Michelle's ally Keats, lazily played by Pratt, is so underwritten that I'm surprised he even has a name. And many of the robots, despite how lifelike they look, have boring personalities. Woody Harrelson voices the Planters mascot, Mr. Peanut—further proof of the budget going toward procuring recognizable imagery—but the generic role stifles the actor's eccentric charm. As I watched The Electric State, I was reminded of other projects, good and bad: the philosophical musings of Blade Runner, the flashy incoherence of the Divergent films, the character design from the terrific horror video game Soma. The Russos were obviously influenced by Steven Spielberg's output in particular, but what they've achieved is more akin to the much-maligned, reference-ridden Ready Player One than E.T. The directors had the money and incentive to strip popular works for parts—mimicking previous successes seems like a safe bet for attaining the widest possible appeal and the highest number of viewing minutes, the metric by which many streaming platforms assess how well their projects perform. But such choices leave the movie feeling too familiar, and it's unable to build an identity of its own. Every intricately devised robot, every 'Hey, it's that guy!' actor, every closely replicated image from Stalenhåg's graphic novel becomes nothing but window dressing. Of course, even the most acclaimed filmmakers can fall victim to the constraints of corporate expectations. Barry Jenkins's best efforts to enliven the Lion King prequel, Mufasa, couldn't prevent it from feeling like a capital-p Product. Jenkins's fellow Oscar winner Chloe Zhao similarly struggled to set Eternals apart from the rest of Marvel's green-screen-heavy fare. The Russo brothers, meanwhile, are known for their past accomplishments with transforming movies into merchandising opportunities. But their latest entry into this costly genre is yet another embarrassment in a string of them, and similarly destined to be forgotten. The Electric State, with its predictable final shot teeing up a sequel, argues for a society that values togetherness and imagination. Yet the movie—under the guidance of its directors and producers—just can't be bothered to do any of that imagining itself. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
$320 Million Can't Buy You Into the Zeitgeist
Joe and Anthony Russo, better known as the Russo brothers, have enjoyed two of the most lucrative careers in Hollywood. The bulk of their success comes from the features they've co-directed for Marvel: Three of those projects, in which they helped turn comic-book characters into icons and 'cinematic universes' into a standard practice, are among the 50 highest-grossing movies of all time. Two of them— Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame —made more than $2 billion at the box office globally. Apart from James Cameron, they're the only directors to have crossed that milestone at least twice. Judging by their filmography since Endgame, though, it's unlikely that the Russos will do so for a third time—at least, not without the Avengers. The astronomical budgets the pair have commanded over the past half decade have not yielded Hulk-size cultural footprints: Netflix, which began green-lighting expensive movies to help build its own franchises, stated that the Russos' $200 million spy thriller The Gray Man topped its most-watched list for two weeks. But neither the film nor Ryan Gosling's assassin protagonist has lingered in the public memory. Citadel, the Prime Video series the Russos produced, is one of the priciest shows ever made, at more than $300 million for its first season. Conceived by an Amazon executive, Citadel was meant to kick-start a ' global franchise,' but it barely made an impression with viewers; in its first month of availability, the show never entered Nielsen's Top 10 streaming rankings. Without Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Russos' work has become formulaic and ephemeral. Ambitious studios, it seems, can't simply buy their way into the zeitgeist. Yet here the Russos are again, with another exorbitant attempt to establish a new blockbuster series. The Electric State, now on Netflix, is a $320 million adaptation of Simon Stalenhåg's graphic novel about a girl who, joined by an intelligent robot, searches for her brother across a retro-futuristic, dystopian America. Some of that money has evidently been put to good use: The visual effects are seamless, the robot designs are genuinely cool, and the set dressing is meticulous. The cast, too, is stacked: Holly Hunter, Colman Domingo, and Brian Cox pop up. Their roles, though, are so absurdly small that they suggest heavy reshoots and excised footage. Hollywood studios granting massive funds to directors who have made box-office hits is a common practice—especially for projects that appear likely to return on the investment. But the Russos have become unusually adept at demonstrating the creative limitations of those piles of cash. Companies have made clear their desire to generate fresh cinematic universes, and Stalenhåg's book is an excellent starting point for an expansive film adaptation: His evocative artwork explores lands that practically beg to be rendered on the big screen, and his heroine's quest is filled with pathos. Anthony Russo himself said, during a panel at New York Comic Con last October, that he and his brother were excited 'to figure out what kind of story we can tell in this world.' The story they tell, however, replaces the originality of Stalenhåg's book with algorithm-friendly, inelegant slop. The Russos reduce the graphic novel's haunting and macabre tale down to a clichéd battle between unethical humans and sentient machines, in which the latter tried to assert their rights and lost; it's a generic good-versus-evil setup not unlike those found in The Gray Man and Citadel. Millie Bobby Brown—the closest thing Netflix has to an in-house star—plays Michelle, a teenager sympathetic to the automatons' plight who rallies a group of misfits to dethrone a heartless tech mogul, Ethan (Stanley Tucci), who believes that humans and robots shouldn't coexist. Ethan wants to give people the edge by hooking them up to the virtual-reality headsets he invented; Michelle would like everyone to log off and touch some grass. What Michelle and Ethan do have in common is that they're both one-dimensional archetypes with tragic backstories. The film around them is equally bland. The Electric State is so transparently eager to satisfy as many demographics of viewers as possible that it proves its own message: that a world dependent on business interests and technological optimization dulls artistic potential and human ingenuity. All that's left is a wasteland of half-baked ideas searching for a home. There's a self-conscious streak to The Electric State that renders it inert from the start. The Russos populate the cast with big names (and Marvel standbys) such as Chris Pratt and Anthony Mackie, actors whose chemistry with each other almost distracts from the weak storytelling. Michelle resembles the protagonists of 2010s young-adult films, complete with pithy lines ('I have a condition where I can only live in reality,' she scoffs) and a signature hairdo. Each character is meant to be easy to root for or against, which forces them to be simplistic; Michelle's ally Keats, lazily played by Pratt, is so underwritten that I'm surprised he even has a name. And many of the robots, despite how lifelike they look, have boring personalities. Woody Harrelson voices the Planters mascot, Mr. Peanut—further proof of the budget going toward procuring recognizable imagery—but the generic role stifles the actor's eccentric charm. As I watched The Electric State, I was reminded of other projects, good and bad: the philosophical musings of Blade Runner, the flashy incoherence of the Divergent films, the character design from the terrific horror video game Soma. The Russos were obviously influenced by Steven Spielberg's output in particular, but what they've achieved is more akin to the much-maligned, reference-ridden Ready Player One than E.T. The directors had the money and incentive to strip popular works for parts—mimicking previous successes seems like a safe bet for attaining the widest possible appeal and the highest number of viewing minutes, the metric by which many streaming platforms assess how well their projects perform. But such choices leave the movie feeling too familiar, and it's unable to build an identity of its own. Every intricately devised robot, every 'Hey, it's that guy!' actor, every closely replicated image from Stalenhåg's graphic novel becomes nothing but window dressing. Of course, even the most acclaimed filmmakers can fall victim to the constraints of corporate expectations. Barry Jenkins's best efforts to enliven the Lion King prequel, Mufasa, couldn't prevent it from feeling like a capital- p Product. Jenkins's fellow Oscar winner Chloe Zhao similarly struggled to set Eternals apart from the rest of Marvel's green-screen-heavy fare. The Russo brothers, meanwhile, are known for their past accomplishments with transforming movies into merchandising opportunities. But their latest entry into this costly genre is yet another embarrassment in a string of them, and similarly destined to be forgotten. The Electric State, with its predictable final shot teeing up a sequel, argues for a society that values togetherness and imagination. Yet the movie—under the guidance of its directors and producers—just can't be bothered to do any of that imagining itself.
