Joe and Anthony Russo’s association with the Marvel Cinematic Universe has set them up for life career-wise, with the sibling duo now able to pick and choose any project they want.
Not only are they the directors of the highest-grossing movie ever made in Avengers: Endgame, but they’re also the only people other than James Cameron to have helmed two pics that earned over $2 billion at the box office, while the combined $6.8 billion haul of their entire filmography puts them behind just Steven Spielberg when naming the most commercially successful directors in the history of cinema.
You’d have thought they’d earned the right to take it easy for a while, then, but the Russos are busier than ever. As well as producing Netflix’s most-watched original movie of all-time in Extraction, they’ve signed on to tackle $200 million espionage blockbuster The Gray Man for the streamer, action comedy Saigon Bodyguards is in the works with Chris Pratt, sci-fi thriller The Electric State is set up at Universal with Millie Bobby Brown starring and potential awards season contender Cherry is releasing in just a couple of weeks, and that’s without even mentioning Disney’s live-action Hercules remake.
The brothers may have drawn a line under their tenure with the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the end of the Infinity Saga, but they admitted in the past that an adaptation of Secret Wars could convince them to return. However, in a recent interview, Joe Russo revealed that they’d love to take a crack at rebooting Wolverine as well.
“To realize him on screen, it’s very hard because Hugh Jackman’s performance is definitive. It’s like Batman, you have to really think of a way to, you have to find the right actor to come in and give a really different take to that character. But I would really love to see him on screen. I think the best thing is to take a break, without question. You need a palate cleanser, you need to rinse the towel a little bit, let everyone enjoy what was, and then come up with something new. But I’d love to take a crack at Wolverine at some point.”
There’s no word on whether or not Wolverine will even be involved in the MCU’s X-Men reboot, and Hugh Jackman has left some pretty big shoes to fill, but if Kevin Feige catches wind of Russo’s comments, then maybe he’ll have a word in the ear of his most profitable collaborators to pick their brains for any ideas.