The Russos Talk AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, Costume Changes, and How to Recast Iron Man

The Russo Brothers are about to dive deep into doing press for Captain America: Civil War, but with the two-part Avengers: Infinity War movies just over the horizon, fans are desperate for any scraps of info they can get. Anthony and Joe Russo sat down with Forbes for a long interview that covered many different topics, and they touched on which characters we might see pop up in Infinity War: 

Anthony: There are certain characters you don't know.

Joe: New characters that are going to appear in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s a big sprawling ambitious movie, it’s about as ambitious as movies get and it should be, and the title alone indicates that there will be an incredible scape [sic] and scope to it.

Anthony: It is intended to be the entire culmination of the Marvel cinematic universe and, in many ways, the end to that part of it. But we don’t even have the first draft in on that script yet; we’re still in the outline phase. It’s hard not to talk about it too specifically now only because of spoilers but also because we’re still figuring it out.

The future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't been fully announced beyond the year 2020, and many fans are wondering if Infinity War will mark the last time we see some of the current actors playing the heroes they've become known for. When asked about possibly replacing the actors and recasting those characters down the line, Joe had an interesting response:

It’s almost impossible to replace Robert, he’s the biggest movie star in the world. One close up from Robert is worth another actor’s entire performance, he’s incredibly gifted and insanely talented. I think if and when he is done with the character I think you will find that Iron Man might disappear for a while. I think the only way that you could reboot that character is to give a generational gap that would allow another actor to at least have a chance to redefine that character without the enormous spectre of Robert hanging over it. There are so many characters in the Marvel universe that can pick up the ball and run without it through the next phase or two before you need to see Iron Man again, frankly. 

I never even considered that Marvel Studios might be willing to essentially sideline what might be its most popular character for a decade to give the audience time to get used to the idea of a different actor eventually stepping into the role, but if any studio would actually make that decision (which, by the way, is the right decision), it's Marvel. Hopefully that's how it'll actually go down once Downey is ready to call it quits.

I wrote about the duo's comments about Spider-Man's upcoming appearance in Civil War earlier this morning, but they addressed whether or not Spidey's costume might change and evolve if he were to appear in Infinity War (which, let's be real, he's definitely going to appear in Infinity War):

Joe: Without question. We like making strong choices with characters so while this might be a slightly more traditional, Steve Ditko influenced suit, it is certainly in our vocabulary to develop it into something more extreme as the storytelling requires. I think there are things that people will discover when they see the film about why the suit operate the way it does, why the eyes move, all that stuff is substantiated. Everybody wants the answers yesterday but then what would be the point of seeing the movie?

There's one more quick Civil War tidbit that's worth talking about. When asked whether we'd see Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange show up in a Civil War post-credits scene, here's how Joe responded:

We can’t say who is going to be in it but we can say that there certainly could be one, or two, maybe three. We can confirm that you should stay sat in your seats when the movie is done.

As if any true Marvel fan would ever walk out of a theater right when the credits started rolling! We're eight years into this interconnected universe, and I think by now everyone knows to stick around and see what teases await us after the credits finish. I look forward to analyzing it to death as soon as I get out of the theater!

Civil War opens on May 6, 2016, Infinity War — Part 1 opens on May 4, 2018, and Infinity War — Part 2 hits theaters on May 3, 2019.