Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Courtesy of Getty The Russo brothers fired up a rainy SXSW London on Tuesday afternoon.
AGBO co-founders Anthony and Joe Russo were joined by their partner, former chief creative officer at Epic Games Donald Mustard, at a headline session titled “Building Artistic Universes Without Borders” at the Shoreditch instalment of the major festival and conference event.
The directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame began by lauding the record-breaking box office work of Obsession and Backrooms filmmakers, 26-year-old Curry Barker and 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who have become the latest cinematic saviors of horror. “If you just follow your own ethos, I’m fascinated by Obsession… [It’s] viciously funny, right? In a very dark way, made for less than a million dollars, and will be the highest return ever for a movie,” said Anthony Russo.
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“That’s an explosively disruptive moment… [The state of the film business] is in a very, very complicated place, but I think that’s a good thing,” Anthony Russo added. “I think it’s a good thing, because Gen Z are aging into becoming not only the dominant audience, but the dominant story today.”
It wasn’t long before, of course, they came onto the hotly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday, which is set to premiere this December. Anthony Russo said that even though after Endgame there was a strong sense of closure — and the men were admittedly “exhausted” after those seven years leading the franchise — it was an idea from writer Stephen McFeely that “reignited” their desire to return to the MCU. “He came up with this creative idea that reignited [the project], and I can’t talk about that creative idea, because it’s the basis for Doomsday, but that [idea] all of a sudden broke the skies open for us, and we saw all new kinds of possibilities with that idea.”
Joe Russo said that they’re “back to phase zero” of the MCU with Doomsday and Robert Downey Jr. playing antagonist Dr. Doom: “That serial shifting and changing and surprising you and then reinventing itself and then shifting and changing and then surprising you — that’s exciting and I think you’re going to see some shifting and changing [with Doomsday]. So, get ready for it. Look, we were with Rob [Downey Jr.] earlier today. We were both talking about this concept that we are back to phase zero. This is starting over from scratch. We want to make sure everybody feels like this isn’t leaning on anything from the past.”
The filmmakers were asked by Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh how they navigate working with such a huge — and star-spangled — ensemble cast. “Each one of those actors is playing somebody’s favorite character,” replied Joe, “and so if you’re not going to search the character properly, then you’re going to disappoint someone in that audience. We grew up in the biggest Italian family. … We understand how to tell stories with multiple characters. A lot of that has to do with very subtle POV shifts throughout the story,” he added, “If Thor, when he lands, if that accidentally cuts [Sebastian] Stan’s head off… That’s how close those points of view are to each other, and that’s all very calibrated, from a protocol standpoint.”
The men were also asked about the other major titles from their portfolio, including the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once and Netflix’s The Gray Man, which became one of the streamer’s most-watched films of all time. This prompted a rallying cry from Joe Russo, who was asked about making that Gray Man deal with Netflix instead of prioritizing a theatrical run.
“We have to stop trying to [say] every story has to fit every medium, and that certain mediums are better than other mediums. This isn’t true. Like, watch the story where you want to watch the story. You don’t want to watch it at home? Go watch it on your computer, on your phone. It’s your right to watch a story how you want to watch it. On YouTube, there’s amazing filmmakers who’ve been working in the phone format, who are now blowing up the box office,” he said, referencing Barker and Parsons again.
“It’s all translatable at some point and there are tremendous assets to digital platforms with an incredible amount of diversity in digital,” he continued, “because they’re more regionally focused and they’ll do regional content, you know? There’s real opportunities for regional filmmakers to get an opportunity to make something with some real financial acumen. All of this stuff should be embraced.
“And I think the part of the problem with culture today is everything’s conflict-driven, because social media is conflict-driven, because that’s what’s sticky, that’s what keeps you on social media. If you’re happy, you’re not on social media, you are out living your life. You’re not worried about what other people are doing, you’re not worried about what your neighbor said,” said Joe. “If we don’t stop attacking every step in our own sector… We’re not going to have [anything] left, because we’re going to go down some rabbit hole where everything is just neutral.”
“The one thing left that binds all of us is [telling] stories, and the more we can diversify those stories, the more we can democratize how those stories are told,” he added.
SXSW London 2026 runs June 1-6.
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