Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo were recently asked how they feel about Zack Snyder’s Justice League getting released on HBO Max. Joe Russo made his feelings on the subject unequivocally clear: “I think it’s always great when a director’s original vision can find its way to the screen.” Russo also reiterated something that both he and Anthony have always maintained: that unlike Warner Bros. and DC, Marvel Studios has always been behind ‘The Russo Cuts’ of the films they’ve made: “We have been very, very fortunate in our careers that everything we did for Marvel, we would call our director’s cuts.”
Joe Russo went on to explain more of his experience working with Marvel, during his interview with CBM:
“They [Marvel] were very gracious and deferential, and very supportive of our vision for those movies, and there’s nothing sitting on the editing room floor that we suddenly want back into those films. We worked very hard at what the current cut of those movies are, so we’re very fortunate to have released our director’s cut on all four of those films.”
The Russo Bros. directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019) for Marvel Studios. During the exhaustive press interviews for all four of those films, the Russo Bros. described their process, which basically boils down to doing furious revision and planning with Marvel execs and the writing team during the pre-production phase. Possibilities are explored and later discarded and/or revised; by the time shooting starts, The Russos have a well-plotted vision in place, and therefore use the overwhelming bulk of what they shoot, as it has already gone through rigorous screening and all parties at Marvel and the filmmaking crew are on the same page.
That is a very different process than what Zack Snyder and other directors experienced at Warner Bros. during the “DC Extended Universe” era of DC Movies, in the 2010s. The shifting (and often competing) executive teams at Warner Bros. during that time led to DC films being handed to strong visionary directors (Zack Snyder, David Ayer), who were misled into believing their directorial visions would drive their respective films. Instead, Warner Bros.’ execs took hold of Batman v Superman, Justice League, and Suicide Squad, and reconfigured them into failed attempts to mimic the Marvel movie formula.
Thankfully, times have changed at WB and now a new and much more exciting DC Movie Universe is taking shape – starting with the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
