With Comic-Con returning to San Diego for the first time in three years this coming weekend, Marvel Studios is launching its first high-profile Hall H panel since 2019. Fans are expecting many major announcements to come from the House of Ideas’ showing at SDCC, then, but we can now rule out one movie that some had thought was on the horizon. Sorry, folks, but the Russo brothers are not directing a Secret Wars adaptation… At least, not right now they’re not.
Joe and Anthony Russo spoke with Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast, to hype up the arrival of their incoming Netflix thriller The Gray Man, and were asked about the odds of a Secret Wars announcement coming at Comic-Con. The filmmaking duo took a moment to clear the air and stress that they’re not currently working with Marvel on any kind of project, let alone something as ambitious as Secret Wars.
“To be clear, there are no conversations,” said Joe Russo, before going on to explain that he and his brother — who previously helmed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Endgame — are just too busy at the moment to consider stepping back into the MCU. He elaborated:
“No, no, we’re not. We haven’t had any conversations with those guys about anything they’ve been up to because we’ve been intensely busy with our own schedule. We just always answer truthfully when we’re asked ‘Would you work with them?’ Of course we would, we adore them. ‘What would you like to do?’ Secret Wars, it was our favorite series, probably. And I think it always gets turned into a bigger story. But, to be clear, there is no story.”
Like Russo says, the pair have made their love of Secret Wars known while speaking to the press for years now, so it’s no wonder that fans had assumed the project was more of a concrete thing than it apparently is. Especially after the multiverse has cracked open in recent MCU outings, which left folks convinced a massive reality-breaching event like SW was on its way. But it seems Marvel isn’t looking to make such a movie yet. Or, if they are, the Russos aren’t involved.
We’ll find out what Marvel has in store for us when the studio’s panel takes place at SDCC on Saturday, July 23 from 5:00 PM PDT.