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From roughly 2014 to 2019—starting with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and ending with Avengers: Endgame—Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe went on a run of massively successful films that dominated pop culture on a global scale. It arguably represented the absolute peak of the superhero genre’s reach and power, and certainly its popularity. Four of the biggest and best movies during that stretch, including the aforementioned The Winter Soldier and Endgame, were also directed by the same guys: Anthony and Joe Russo.
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige saw something in the Russos’ pitch for The Winter Soldier, which they envisioned as a paranoid political thriller, that overrode any concerns that they were basically TV directors with a handful of small, poorly received features to their names. Feige’s bet paid off, as the Russos went from The Winter Soldier to the even more expansive Captain America: Civil War (an Avengers movie in all but name) and then two truly titanic Avengers sequels, which spanned literally all of time and space and brought nearly every live-action MCU character together in the conclusion to a narrative 10 years in the making.
Now five years after bidding farewell to Marvel with Endgame, the Russos are officially coming back to helm Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Coming back with them is Robert Downey Jr. as well, who is trading in his Iron Man gear for Doctor Doom’s armor and hood. Can the Russos recapture the same magical formula that powered their four previous MCU films to unmatched heights of acclaim, success, and cultural impact? Will they, the actors, the executives, and the craftspeople at Marvel be able to channel the same dynamic that made those earlier movies so beloved and genuinely terrific?
Much has changed for Marvel and the world since 2019. The post-Endgame MCU has struggled with declining box office, fan enthusiasm, critical notices, and, frankly, narrative cohesion like the kind that drove the Infinity Saga. The Russos have had their own struggles as well. Yes, Deadpool & Wolverine is a massive hit out of the box, but the fate of upcoming films—and the overall arc of what has been called the Multiverse Saga—remains frustratingly unclear. Let’s take a look at the upside, and down, of perhaps the definitive Marvel team assembling once again.
Pro: The Russos Know the Marvel Universe
The Russos seem to genuinely love the Marvel universe, and in fact have stated many times that Secret Wars would be the one property that could lure them back after the exhausting seven years they spent making their previous four MCU pictures. They’ve directed more MCU movies than anyone else, they are familiar with the canon and history, and they seem uniquely able to steer the characters, tone, and story in the right direction.
Con: The MCU Has Changed A Lot Since Endgame
This is not the MCU that the Russos left behind five years ago. That was a universe in which all its main characters were united by a singular purpose where each battle seemed in service to a larger goal, and where the characters’ arcs were all driven by the story they were telling. Ever since kicking off Phase Four in 2021, the MCU does not seem to have had the kind of overarching, unifying narrative that gradually moved from the background to the foreground, building in excitement and scale.
Characters have been introduced and vanished, storylines started and then dropped, and even the underlying threat—Kang the Conqueror running rampant through the multiverse—is now definitively scrapped (Downey’s Doctor Doom will fill that slot). When the Russos first came aboard, the MCU was (at least from the outside) a smoothly running machine. Now, not so much.
Pro: The Players Are the Same
Even before the announcement of Downey’s return to the MCU, the Russos were coming back into an organization that in many ways has been strikingly consistent over the years: Kevin Feige, of course, is the chief creative officer and architect of the whole shebang, with co-president Louis D’Esposito also a consistent presence and executive producer on every Marvel film since 2008. Other creative execs, such as Trinh Tran and Brad Winderbaum, have also been part of the Marvel factory for years. And while his writing partner Christopher Markus is apparently going to sit this one out, screenwriter Stephen McFeely, who co-wrote all four of the Russos’ previous MCU films, as well as others, has been tapped to handle the newly revamped Doomsday and Secret Wars.
Con: Not All the Players Are the Same
However, the MCU has also seen some behind-the-scenes personnel depart the fold since the Russos last hung out there, most notably former president of visual effects and post-production, Victoria Alonso, who was dismissed in 2023 amid growing criticism of both the MCU’s visuals and the way VFX workers were treated. And then there are the actors: how many of the surviving OG Avengers will return for Secret Wars, and how many new faces will the Russos contend with? They have yet to work with the likes of Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), potential Young Avengers like Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop), and even Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), while the involvement of some of their regulars like Chris Evans, Tom Holland, and Mark Ruffalo remains unknown for now.
Pro: The Russos Know Their Way Around Blockbuster Filmmaking
It was their outstanding work on The Winter Soldier that got the Russos the chance to return for Civil War (also known to many as Avengers 2.5), and that in turn led Kevin Feige to promote them to the biggest directorial chairs possible after original Avengers writer-director Joss Whedon hung up his Infinity Gauntlet. But the Russos easily rose to the challenge: Infinity War and Endgame, whatever you may think of them, are two of the biggest blockbusters of all time in terms of scale, scope, and narrative ambition. The brothers handled them with style and class, building on the previous decade of storytelling to keep the beloved core characters front and center throughout and creating a series of huge moments and payoffs in both movies that captured the imagination of the world.
Con: Everything the Russos Have Done Post-MCU Has Been Shaky
While it seems as if the Russos thrived in the MCU machine—efficient and occasionally visionary managers on the studio floor, working seamlessly with the Marvel overlords steering above—their self-produced directorial efforts since Endgame have been far less compelling. The Gray Man, allegedly a big hit for Netflix, was a dull, convoluted, poorly paced, generic action thriller, full of holes and uneven performances. Likewise, Cherry, starring Tom “Spider-Man” Holland, was a failure, and their uber-expensive TV series, Citadel, has been met with a shrug (the budget on their latest project, The Electric State, has reportedly rocketed well past $300 million). They may play very nicely in the MCU sandbox, but have projected less surety and even a need for supervision on their own.
Pro: These Directors Know How to Handle a Massive Cast
However many new Avengers, or old favorites for that matter, the Russos will have at their disposal (and judging from the comics alone, it’ll be a lot), the duo have proven their abilities to handle an enormous ensemble and give most of them at least a moment or two to individually shine. Part of that certainly goes back to the work by Markus and McFeely, whose efforts on those previous movies are severely underrated, in our opinion. So it will presumably also be good to have at least McFeely back. But the brothers also managed to get superb performances out of their stars, particularly Downey, Evans, Josh Brolin as Thanos, and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor (the Thor of Infinity War is our favorite).
Con: Will the Next Two Avengers Movies Try Too Hard to Top Endgame?
Corralling a massive cast is one thing, but how much is too much? Feige has stated that not every MCU character introduced in the last few years will be appearing in Doomsday and Secret Wars, but there are still a lot of superheroes and superhero-adjacents to contend with, including the Fantastic Four, the Thunderbolts, random mutants, and whatever form the current Guardians of the Galaxy take. Then there’s Downey. Will he essentially graft Victor von Doom onto his own personality, as he did with Tony Stark? That was a perfect fit, but Doom is a much different, far more humorless man. We know from the comics what Doom is capable if, but can he match the heights of onscreen villainy set by Thanos? Just how big can these two movies go without toppling over?
One thing’s for sure: Anthony and Joe Russo have their work cut out for them, but if they stick the landing, they’ll be the real superheroes of the MCU.
Avengers: Doomsday is out in May 2026, while Avengers: Secret Wars arrives in May 2027.
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