Infinity War and Endgame directors the Russo brothers are aiming to outdo themselves with their new Avengers movies, Doomsday and Secret Wars

With Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, directors Joe and Anthony Russo, a.k.a. the Russo Brothers, delivered two of the top ten highest-grossing films of all time and two of the most highly regarded comic book movies ever made. Now, they’re set to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with another pair of Avengers movies, Avengers: Doomsday (which is scheduled to reach theatres on May 1, 2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (scheduled for a May 7, 2027 theatrical release) – and during an interview with GamesRadar+, they said that they’re aiming to “outdo” Infinity War and Endgame with Doomsday and Secret Wars.

When asked if they feel like they’re putting themselves in competition with their younger selves by making these new movies, Joe Russo answered, “Absolutely, we want to beat those younger versions of ourselves. We have to be, right? Because we have to outdo those movies in a way, or we at least have to take you on an equally engaging journey.” Anthony Russo added, “These movies are an incredible opportunity for us, and they’re an incredible opportunity for audiences. So we’re doing what we can to deliver the experience everyone, I think, hopes for.“

Speaking with Collider, the brothers said that Doomsday and Secret Wars are likely to have running times that are similar to those of Infinity War and Endgame. It was said, “If I were a betting man, I would say the first one is two and a half, and the second one’s three hours.” Avengers: Infinity War had a running time of 149 minutes and Avengers: Endgame is the longest film in the MCU with a running time of 181 minutes.

Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will be filming back-to-back, with production expected to begin very soon. We still don’t know what the exact character line-up is going to be, but we know for sure that both of these movies are going to star Robert Downey Jr. – not as his Tony Stark / Iron Man character from earlier MCU movies, but as the villainous Doctor Doom / Victor von Doom.

There have been a lot of rumors about Downey’s co-stars. Chris Pratt might be back as his Guardians of the Galaxy character Star-Lord, but he’s also going to be spending “six or seven months” of the year working on The Terminal List season 2. Benedict Cumberbatch went back and forth on whether or not he’ll be in Doomsday as Doctor Strange. Deadline reported that Hayley Atwell will be back as Agent Peggy Carter. The Wrap reported that Chris Evans will be in the film, possibly as Nomad rather than Captain America, but Evans said it’s not true. Another rumor said that Scarlett Johansson could reprise her role as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow. But we don’t know much for sure at this point.

Do you think the Russo brothers will be able to outdo themselves with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars? Let us know by leaving a comment below.