Avengers: Doomsday directors Joe and Anthony Russo have been explaining the lack of completed script on their upcoming film. There’ll come a point when Avengers: Doomsday arrives in cinemas this Christmas, where Marvel and directors Joe and Anthony Russo get the chance to answer some of the conversations surrounding their film in the best way ... Avengers: Doomsday | Russo brothers confirm unfinished script, insist “we’re improvisation-based” directors
Avengers: Doomsday directors Joe and Anthony Russo have been explaining the lack of completed script on their upcoming film.
There’ll come a point when Avengers: Doomsday arrives in cinemas this Christmas, where Marvel and directors Joe and Anthony Russo get the chance to answer some of the conversations surrounding their film in the best way possible: delivering a brilliant, crowd-pleasing film.
Until then, the process by which they’ve all made what’s likely to be the most expensive film of all time feels quite something.
There had been reports that the script for the film, a production involving arguably the biggest collection of named stars this side of Robert Altman’s The Player, wasn’t done. In fact, that the entire cast wasn’t locked down. We’ve had stories in the past of films that start shooting without an ending, or begin production with a role or two to fill.
But this is as well-resourced a feature film as has ever been made, and the Russo brothers, in a new interview with AP, have confirmed that at the very least, the script rumours were true.
“We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors”, they’ve explained.
“We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or a few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.”
I’ve read that a few times now and can’t quite work it out. Given the effects work, the set building, the story beats a film like this has to hit, and the suggestion that we as an audience need to do our homework to get the most out of the film: it doesn’t have a finished script?
Surely large parts of the screenplay must have been in some sort of shape, but otherwise it’s running very close to the world’s most costly improv theatre group.
And yet: the Russos have made some of the most successful and popular movies of all time. I’m not sure how much of the same process they used on the likes of Captain America: Civil War or Avengers: Endgame, but in the comic book movie space, their results stand alone.
Reshoots are shortly to get underway ahead of the film’s release on 18th December. Then, it’s straight onto Avengers: Secret Wars, which will be shooting next year. Presumably, someone is working on a script for that, but I’m not taking that for granted…
