The Russo brothers explain why they decided to return to Marvel for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Joe and Anthony Russo brought Marvel’s Infinity Saga to an epic conclusion with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. It seemed like the directing duo were ready to move on from Marvel and tackle their own projects, but it was announced last year that they would be returning for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. So, what brought them back?

“Endgame was the end, and it took a little time for us to begin to think about it as something other than an end,” Anthony Russo told Empire. “We’re very close with Kevin and Lou [D’Esposito, Marvel Studios’ Co-President] and the entire Marvel team and we’ve had conversations through the years. We’ve talked about a lot of ideas.“

Anthony continued, “Really what happened was, we ended up stumbling upon an idea that activated all of us. You couldn’t see it coming until it came, and once it came it was like, ‘Well, that’s a story we need to tell.’“

Joe added that everything started to come together when screenwriter Stephen McFeely cracked the idea for how Secret Wars could work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I remember calling Steve and said, ‘Hey, crazy idea. What do you think if we all go back and do Secret Wars?’” he said. “You were like, ‘F*** no. Absolutely not.’ And then you hung up. And the next morning at 7.30 you called and were like, ‘Alright, I have an idea.’“

Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) was originally slated to direct the first of the new Avengers movies (initially titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty), but after Jonathan Majors was fired, Marvel pivoted to the new story, and Cretton departed the project. He later signed on to direct the new Spider-Man movie.

As we know, Avengers: Doomsday will also feature the return of Robert Downey Jr., who will be playing Doctor Doom, the new big bad of the MCU. Last year, Joe teased that we can expect something “really explosive” with the movie. “Why would we come back if we didn’t feel like we had a story that had that possibility of being on an equal footing with Infinity War and Endgame unless there’s a kernel there for an idea that’s really explosive?” Avengers: Doomsday is slated for a May 1, 2026 release, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027.