"We have been on a very long journey to success," says filmmaker Joe Russo. "We call it a 20-year overnight success." Together with his older brother, Anthony, the unassuming siblings are co-directors of the biggest film of all time, Avengers: Endgame.
This behemoth, which grossed $2.8 billion (Dh10.25bn), concludes years of work on the Marvel saga, and it eclipsed the box office collection of James Cameron's Titanic and Avatar when it released last year.
"It's not something you plan for," says Joe, 48. "We grew up watching James Cameron movies. We are inspired by him. So to be even in a position to have a conversation like this seems surreal to us." Cameron sent the pair "a lovely note" when Endgame went ballistic at the box office last April. Likewise, director J J Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy sent them a signed poster when the film's receipts passed Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.
But after all the congratulations and celebrations, how do you move on from that? In their case, quite easily it seems. The quartet of Marvel films they made, beginning with 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, is only a fraction of their output. "We spent 10 years in television," says Joe in reference to their work on sitcoms such as Arrested Development and Community, the college campus comedy their company AGBO Films co-produced.
“It’s very different when you are serving as a director or serving as a producer,” says Anthony, 50. “Our job as producers is really to support people who are on the front line.”
Extraction, a film the brothers produced, will be released on Netflix this month. Joe also wrote the script for Sam Hargrave – a former stunt co-ordinator on the Avengers films – to direct. The film reunites them all with Chris Hemsworth, who played Thor in the Marvel movies.
Set in Bangladesh, Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, a mercenary embroiled in a mission to rescue the kidnapped son of an international crime lord. "Chris plays a man who is physically brave, but is an emotional coward," says Joe, who based the script on the graphic novel Ciudad, which he wrote with Ande Parks a decade ago. The idea, he says, is to "deconstruct the notions of what it means to be a hero and ask hard questions about the traditional stereotypes that play out in action movies".
As Hargrave follows in the footsteps of stuntmen-turned-directors Chad Stahelski (John Wick) and David Leitch (Atomic Blonde), he is evidently an ideal choice to take a story such as Extraction to the big screen. For the Russos, it made total sense.
“Once you make that connection with creative collaborators who you respect and hire, at that point, it’s just about empowering them to make the best movie they can,” says Anthony, who calls the film “a hardcore action movie with a soul”.
The brothers also worked as producers on Mosul, a vivid account of the joint-forces campaign to liberate the eponymous ISIS-controlled Iraqi city back in 2017. "On a personal level we were very passionate about making it," says Anthony.
Based on a New Yorker article by Luke Mogelson, it was first brought to the Russos' attention by their Avengers screenwriter Stephen McFeely. "This we felt was an incredible opportunity to portray Arab characters as heroes in a positive light," says Joe, "going against the traditional depiction in Hollywood."
If this is groundbreaking, it is hardly out of character for the brothers. “We have a social conscience,” says Joe. “Ant and I are obsessed with world issues. We have got kids who are growing up in this world. So we are concerned with the direction the world is moving in.”
His brother adds that in some ways Mosul is "an extension" of their recent work. "The one thing we got to do with the Marvel movies was engage with audiences in a really intense way all over the world. And for us, this movie is an extension of that – our ability to interact with global audiences."
Indeed, the Russos are doing exactly what any director who has scored the biggest movie of all time should be doing: getting passion projects made. “We happen to be in a very fortunate position,” says Joe. “I would not necessarily call it a turning point for us, but it’s a reflection of our intentions and where we want to go with our studio, AGBO, and the kinds of stories that we want to tell … Everything we are doing is subversive or has some social consciousness to it or political point of view, just because it’s who we are as people.”
In terms of their next directorial project, they have wasted no time in shooting crime drama Cherry. Based on Nico Walker's 2018 novel, it stars Tom Holland, the young British actor they cast as Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, as an army medic who robs banks to feed his opioid addiction.
"We are dealing with PTSD, the Iraq war, the legacy of that war and opioid prescriptions," says Anthony, of a story that took the Russos back to their native Ohio, where they shot their 2002 feature Welcome to Collinwood.
More exciting – at least for those who grew up in the 1980s – is the fact the brothers may be adapting hit cartoon series Battle of the Planets. "We have the rights," says Joe. "We are working on breaking a story for it. It was our favourite cartoon growing up. We used to run home from school to watch it, so we know it intimately well."
It is another chance for them to reach for the stars.
Extraction is on Netflix from Friday, April 24
