Avengers: Endgame Director Joe Russo Explains Why The Multiverse Might Be A Problem For MCU

Joe Russo and his brother Anthony became widely known filmmakers in 2014 when they directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the movie that some MCU fans still consider to be one of the best Marvel movies ever made. Brothers returned to direct a sequel Captain America: Civil War, which was released in 2016. 

After that, brothers replaced Joss Whedon (who directed the first two Avengers movies) and directed Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), two movies that were maybe the biggest crossover events ever seen on the big screen. Following the release of Avengers: Endgame, the Russo brothers finished their MCU path after five years and four movies.

Still, after two large-scale movies like Infinity War and Endgame, the appetite of the Marvel fanbase only increased and they started hoping that Marvel can pull off something just as big, or maybe even bigger, than that. Knowing the fact that Infinity War and Endgame assembled almost the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe into those two movies, Marvel decided to push the borders and look for the new crossover ideas using the concept of the Multiverse.

Last December, Sony and Disney released Spider-Man: No Way Home, which assembled three different Spider-Men (played by Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire), which resulted in another big crossover event only two and a half years after the release of Endgame. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The upcoming movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, is expected to unlock the doors of the entire Marvel Multiverse (which also includes Fox’s X-Men franchise, animated series What If…?, and numerous other Marvel projects in the past).

There’s a saying that “more isn’t always better”, and Joe Russo apparently agrees. Despite all the pros and excitement that opening the doors of the Multiverse can bring, there are also some cons, and Russo is aware of that. Here’s how he tried to explain it:

“The corporate agenda is: Do you like chocolate ice cream? Well here chocolate ice cream with sprinkles, here’s chocolate ice cream with fudge… It’s their job to turn the money printer on. It’s the creative’s job to say, ‘Well shit, I don’t know if I want to watch that.’ […] So yeah, too much of one thing is a bad thing, but I think there are enough creators and innovators in the space where you can expect to be surprised. Just don’t expect corporations to surprise you.” — Joe Russo for IGN

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which could easily be one of the wildest MCU movies ever, is set to be released on May 6, 2022.