The Russo Brothers were not worried that they started shooting “Avengers: Doomsday” without a finished script.
The directors helming the upcoming MCU film detailed in an interview with AP Wednesday that they didn’t have a completed script when they returned to Marvel for the project.
Some of that was due to the hard pivot the studio had to make when Jonathan Majors was dropped from the franchise as the proposed big bad, Kang the Conqueror, after his domestic assault conviction. The originally planned Avengers film – titled “The Kang Dynasty” – was scrapped and plans for “Doomsday” grew — and that’s where the Russo’s re-entered.
That meant when Joe and Anthony Russo were brought back aboard, after handling both “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame,” they did not have a completed script to work with. But that didn’t bother them once shooting began.
“We always view the script as a living organism,” Joe said. “We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.”
One of the biggest aspects of the upcoming film is that both Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans are making their return to the MCU. Evans is back as Captain America but RDJ has been cast as Dr. Doom rather than Tony Stark. In a previous interview, the Russos touched on them continuing to work with the actors years after their previous Avengers movies and “Captain America: Civil War.”
“I mean, there’s a place for everything. It’s a place for close-ended expressions. There’s a place for serialized storytelling. It should all coexist,” Joe said in that previous interview. “Why not? I mean, I want a diversity of experiences. I don’t want to have to just get one thing over and over again. And what Marvel’s done better than anybody in history is that serialized storytelling at scale.”
He continued: “And ‘Doomsday’ is, you know, a complete reinvention. It’s another swing. I don’t think the audience is expecting it at all what happens in the movie — and its tone and its subject matter. I’m hoping it feels like another profound shift for them in that serialized story.”
Along with RDJ and Evans, “Avengers: Doomsday” boasts an expectedly stellar cast. They are joined by Chris Hemsworth, Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Letitia Wright, Paul Rudd, Wyatt Russell, Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Simu Liu, Florence Pugh, Kelsey Grammer, Joseph Quinn, Danny Ramirez, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Channing Tatum and many more.
“Avengers: Doomsday” arrives in theaters on Dec. 18. It will be followed the following year by “Avengers: Secret Wars” on Dec. 17, 2027.
