Avengers: Endgame, Joe Russo talks about the end

Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark in the Avengers: Endgame

You have eight minutes with Joe Russo," said the publicist who handled the Avengers: Endgame director's Mumbai visit. As an ardent viewer of the superhero franchise this was panic mode, considering all the things I wanted to know. As the trailer of the film hasn't revealed much, one can't stop wondering - will all the Avengers come back to life, why has Captain Marvel stayed away from the fight this long, will any more Avengers die, what outcome did Dr Strange see in the 14,000,605 possible endings of which the Avengers emerge victorious in just one? - But he wouldn't answer any of these questions as the Russo Brothers are extremely secretive.

As fan theories around the franchise emerge every day, Joe Russo says that his brother Anthony (co-director) and he are obsessed about keeping things secret. "We work very hard to keep the secrets. My brother and I are obsessive about it. We protect the scripts; so, none of the actors have actually read the real scripts of the film. People only read the scenes they are in. The trailers and promotional materials are heavily guarded. They only go through my brother, me, and Kevin Feige [producer] at Marvel," he says and reasons it out as the need to give audience the film experience he enjoyed as a child. "I grew up in an era where we did not have the internet, and so, secrets were never spoilt. That's what I am used to and I want to provide that same experience to the audience."

Joe Russo

The Russo Brothers directed four Marvel movies in six years - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and now Avengers: Endgame - and each one has been bigger than the last, especially, the end. The Winter Soldier featured a massive fight between Chris Evans (Captain America) and Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier); The Civil War had a faceoff between Iron Man and Captain America, and in Infinity War, the Avengers united tried to face Thanos in the ultimate battle, or so we thought. Joe explains that action requires a lot of discipline. "It's a disciplined and meticulous process to create an action sequence. It requires imagination, to dream up really inventive and interesting set pieces. The most important part of it is to define character and storytelling through the action. The human brain can only take about 30 seconds of unmotivated action before it starts to shut down. To keep the audience engaged, you have to keep shifting, so that it illuminates a character, or storytelling points."

However, with over 20 characters in a three-hour film, one wonders how the director-duo manage screen time for every actor. And he casually explains that the final work comes after months of story iterations. "My brother, me, Christopher Markus, who has written all the Marvel movies, sit in a room for months on end, with cards on the wall of every character, and we just try iteration after iteration to unlock the right story that we all want to tell. It requires a lot of hard work and focus."

Joe Russo and Anthony Russo. Pic/Getty Images

For fans who already know, and for those who are still discovering the franchise, it's not news that the makers deviate a lot from the original comic books. According to The Infinity Gauntlet comic book, Thanos destroys half the universe to prove his love for Lady Death, the physical manifestation of death in the universe, who is also seen in Infinity. In the film, Thanos tries to bring balance to the universe with his own twisted logic. Joe defends the changed plotline in his film because he wants to give "motivation for the villains".

He says, "Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the same as the Marvel Comic Book Universe. We have to make choices that are very different from the books. We try to find motivations, especially in our villains, that modern audience can relate to. And we wanted to find something that had to do with the preservation of resources. Even in the warped point of view that Thanos has about destroying half the life in the universe to preserve the other half, it shows his motivation. We thought it was an interesting concept because obviously, we are standing at the precipitous of our [bleak] future with issues like global warming, and depletion of natural resources." While this is the end of the Avenger series, it's definitely not the end of the Russo Brothers' association with Marvel. "We are going to go on a vacation for a bit. We have done four of these movies in six years, so I think [we need a break]. We will be back at some point," concludes Joe.

Also Read: Avengers: Endgame Special Look: Captain America and Iron Man reunite!

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