Sure, “Captain Marvel” hits theaters in March 2019, but really, all the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are looking forward to May 2019 and “Avengers 4.” No offense to Brie Larson’s character and the film that introduces the MCU’s strongest hero, but with the Thanos Snap, everyone wants to know how Cap and his crew are going to save the day, thus saving half of the universe’s population.
And as it stands, one of the only people who know the answers is co-director Joe Russo. Joe Russo recently opened his new restaurant called Duello, and to kick it off, he answered some fan questions during an Instagram Live Q&A. Naturally, fans wanted to know less about his culinary endeavors and more about the secrets of the upcoming “Avengers 4.” And while he wasn’t going to tell us who lives or dies, he did offer a couple of worthwhile morsels of information.
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First, as for the current status “Avengers 4,” Russo said, “We are about halfway through the editing process. So we’re just scratching the surface on our VFX shots. There are more than 3000 VFX shots in the movie… We just started work with Alan Silvestri on the score and still editing picture at this point.”
Now, one of the biggest questions surrounding the new film is about the run-time. Considering ‘Infinity War’ clocked in at over two-and-a-half hours, many fans expected the fourth film to be equal, if not longer, than that. Joe Russo said, “The running time on ‘Avengers 4’ is currently sitting at 3 hours, so we’ll see if that holds, but we’re sitting at 3 hours right now.”
Russo also answered a question about the stakes of the upcoming film, saying, “Will the stakes be higher in Avengers 4? Absolutely. 100%. The highest of any of the films to date, without question.” Of course, that’s the sort of marketing speak that Marvel Studios has made famous, so we’re not really sure what he exactly means. However, considering the Russos killed half the universe in the last film, raising the stakes that much more seems difficult, to say the least.
A large portion of the Marvel side of the Q&A dealt with Joe Russo explaining how he feels “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (which is the Russos first MCU film) changed the tone of the entire universe and set the stage for how they moved forward with their films.
“It was important to us not only from a storytelling standpoint… but… we took ownership of those characters and then took the story that started in ‘Winter Soldier’ and carried it through all the way to ‘Avengers 4,'” he explained. “There’s a narrative thread between… all [four] movies we’ve done for Marvel… ‘Winter Soldier’ was the inception of all of it. It was a tonal shift for the Marvel universe and it’s where we really started rocking the boat. That’s important to us—that each film has to turn things on its head. The most aggressive narrative is when you can surprise people and give audiences something they’re not expecting and shift their perspective on…the Marvel universe as we know it moving forward.”
And as for a trailer date, Joe Russo was cagey, as usual, saying that we “may or may not” see it before the end of the year. Compare this to the recent comments by Kevin Feige and we’re guessing this is just a case of Russo trying to keep mum.
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Even though “Avengers 4” marks the fourth film the Russo Brothers have made for Marvel Studios, Joe Russo isn’t ruling out the possibility of working with the studio again in the future, saying he’d “gladly” work for Feige and Co. again down the road, calling them “family. He explained, “It’s been an amazing experience and what they’ve done over the last ten years has been unprecedented… and we would gladly work with Marvel again in the future.”
He also said, “Someone asked me, ‘is Avengers 4 the final film?’ You’ll have to wait and see to find out.” Of course, with their busy schedule, the hotshot directing brothers won’t be able to fit in a Marvel film in the near future.
“Avengers 4” hits theaters May 3, 2019.
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