The Russos On Why They’re Returning For Avengers: Secret Wars: ‘That’s A Story We Need To Tell’

2025 is set to be a big year for Marvel. After largely taking a year off in 2024 (excepting the casual box office mega-smash that was Deadpool Vs. Wolverine), the MCU is back with three major movies in the coming months: the long-awaited Captain America: Brave New World, misanthropic team-up movie Thunderbolts*, and – at long last – the arrival of Marvel’s first family in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. And that’s just the beginning. The current Marvel slate all leads up to Avengers: Secret Wars in 2027 – an outing not only bringing the return of Robert Downey Jr., this time as Dr. Doom, but also reuniting Marvel with directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo and screenwriter Steven McFeely. The A-team is back in a big way.

Not that returning to the MCU was an obvious move. “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 tells Empire in a major new interview – sitting down with Joe Russo, and screenwriting duo Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to talk their ongoing partnership, including on this year’s The Electric State. For the gang, Marvel was never too far away, even after they all left. “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 Russo says. And then, inspiration for Secret Wars struck. “Really what happened was, we ended up stumbling upon an idea that activated all of us,” he teases. “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.’”

It wasn’t always a sure thing that the Russos – and McFeely – would return. (Markus is absent this time, keeping projects running at the Russos’ AGBO production company.) “There were ideas that we were trying to wrap our heads around that preceded this one, and we just never found the story,” Joe Russo admits. But it all gelled when McFeely hit on how the Secret Wars comic arc might work in MCU form. “I remember calling Steve and said, ‘Hey, crazy idea. What do you think if we all go back and do Secret Wars?’” Joe Russo says. “You were like, ‘Fuck 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.’” Roll call: the MCU’s creative avengers are assembling once more.

Read Empire’s full interview with Joe and Anthony Russo, Christopher Markus and Steven McFeely – talking The Electric State, the AGBO slate, and their MCU movies – in the 28 Years Later issue, on sale Thursday 16 January. Pre-order a copy online here. The Electric State is on Netflix from 14 March. Avengers: Secret Wars is scheduled to hit cinemas on 7 May 2027.