New “Avengers” To Have A ‘Focused Narrative’

The Russo Brothers say the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” films are set to provide something that’s been kind of lacking of late at Marvel – a coherent overall narrative.

Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga was built almost like a 90s/00s genre TV season – Thanos served as the big bad who slowly emerges, the first two “Avengers” films were essentially the two mid-season two-parters, some episodes were key to the overall narrative whereas others were standalones off on their own tangents, and it all culminated in a jumbo-sized two-part finale (Infinity War/Endgame).

The ‘Multiverse Saga’ in comparison has been chaotic – films and TV shows have seemed to do their own thing without a grander plan in mind and sometimes contradicting each other, “Loki” and “Ant-Man” teased one only to scrap it, and there’s been no real consistent throughline.

Speaking with The Sunday Times recently to promote “The Electric State,” Anthony Russo explains that part of the draw for them was reigning in a Marvel universe that had expanded perhaps a bit too drastically:

“The MCU has got quite large, that’s for sure. I mean, frankly, we struggle with that same issue. But part of the reason Joe and I decided to go back is exactly what you’re talking about. There needs to be more of a central narrative. That was something we were very specific about when we worked with Marvel [before]. We would like to bring the focused narrative back.”

It’s expected the new films will serve as a ‘soft reboot’ – shrinking the universe to a new single sacred timeline in which Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and more are all together.

Speaking with Omelete, Joe Russo explains that their job with these films isn’t so much to cap off the messy Multiverse Saga as to kick off a whole new and much more coherent new arc:

“What’s compelling about these two new Avengers movies is they’re a beginning. It’s a new beginning. We told an ending story, now we’re going to tell a beginning story.

Who knows where we’ll go from there? Maybe it will be another five years. I think we just needed that time and perspective to figure out where it needed to go next and the only thing that brought us back was the right story.”

Key to it all will be Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. Asked why have Downey Jr. come back rather than hire a new actor, Anthony says: “We can’t explain that as it’s part of the story, but there’s nobody else in the world who could play this character the way he’s about to.”

“Avengers: Doomsday” will shortly begin filming in the UK ahead of a May 2026 release.

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