The Russo Brothers Explain Why Their MCU Projects Don't Faithfully Adapt The Source Material

Key Takeaways

The Russo Brothers are overseeing the next Avengers movies despite also pursuing other projects.
The Russos adapted MCU events differently from the comics to avoid predictable storylines.
Fans are divided on the Russos’ adaptation approach, with some preferring more faithful adaptations.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen some very high highs, and the dynamic duo behind the franchise’s biggest successes has given fans a straight answer to one of the few and frequent critiques of their best work.

The Russo Brothers made an indelible mark on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, successfully helming both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War before moving on to serve as directors for the MCU’s record-setting projects Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Despite this unmatched performance at the box office, the announcement came down from Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige that the Next Avengers movies wouldn’t be overseen by the Russo Brothers due to both parties mutually agreeing to collaborate elsewhere while the creative pair explored other projects. This decision seemed set until the return of the Russos to direct Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars was confirmed alongside Robert Downey Jr.’s shocking return to the franchise as Doom.

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One notable thing about the golden era of Marvel Studios’ offerings was how the MCU did things that weren’t canon in the comics, changing whole plotlines and characters over the course of its multiple phases. Through the events of Infinity War and Endgame, the Russos arguably did this to the most noticeable degree, and now fans get an answer as to why they went in that direction. As reported by Popverse, the Russos spoke at MCM London Comic Con 2024 during a panel pertaining to their most recent work at Netflix, The Electric State, and were asked about how they went about adapting the graphic novel that the project was based on. “We like to be impressionistic when we do an adaptation,” the response went. “We always said this with our Marvel work – if you want to see, you know, the comic book version of Civil War, go read the comic book. You know, we don’t have to tell you the same story and, frankly, it is probably uninteresting for us to tell you the same story because you know where the story’s going.”

While fans are certainly glad to see the duo return for more Avengers, an eventuality that seemed pretty unlikely after Marvel’s spat with Scarlet Johansen, there is a fair number of viewers that would very much like the one to one adaptation that was described negatively there. While the pair has taken a ton of liberties in adapting MCU characters and stories, some might argue that the best parts of their work are those that stay true to the source material, while taking more liberties makes the adaptation less of one. A solid example would be Civil War, a film that did fairly well with casual audiences but is generally agreed to pale in comparison to the comic book storyline of the same name. Whereas the story in print was one of Marvel’s best, the film adaptation neither tells the same exciting story nor reaches the same level of acclaim.

The Russos coming back to the franchise has started a whole lot of discourse, with fans throwing all sorts of potential creative directions about and other creatives like Zack Snyder sharing thoughts on their return to Marvel Studios. The duo stepping into the mix is perceived as such an impactful event specifically because of their penchant for knowing the source material and willfully going in a different direction, as opposed to the classic adaptation dichotomy of either knowing the source material and sticking to it or making up a whole new paradigm based off of a cursory glance at the IP. These decisions have not always been the most popular, but it’s hard to argue with results: the Infinity Saga would never have made it to the big screen if it had to be done verbatim, and would have required more than a hundred companion projects and decades more planning and execution to adapt even somewhat faithfully. Instead, fans got to enjoy a more feasible interpretation that still kept a good amount of the core intrigue, and that success speaks for itself.

The MCU’s next two Avengers films will be hard-pressed to outdo the Russo Brother’s other critically acclaimed prior work, despite the directors themselves coming back to see things to completion. The franchise is faced with the uneasy reality of simply having a slate of weaker, less well-developed pieces at hand to construct the next massive crossover blockbuster. Fans will have to wait until more details emerge to get a feel for what exactly the plan is to return the franchise to its former glory, if it can be done.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is available to stream on Disney+.