“Since the lawsuit, brothers Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, directors of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing movie of all time, hit an impasse in negotiations to direct another Marvel movie,” the WSJ noted, adding “The Johansson dispute left them unsure how their next movie would be distributed and how they would be paid, according to people familiar with the matter.”
It’s unclear which Marvel project the duo were in line to direct next, but Joe Russo has previously revealed that he’d be keen to helm a Secret Wars film.
“That was one of the first books that I really fell in love with as a kid,” he told MTV in 2019. “This notion of, you know, event storytelling, and I think that’s part of the reason that we gravitate so strongly towards these event films and these ensemble films is the notion that you can contain so many different characters and so many different points of view and galvanize them around a story point is really compelling to us.”
Marvel have been heavily-rumored be planning a Secret Wars project for some time, and it’s a potentially huge one that could feature not only the Avengers, but the X-Men and the Fantastic Four going into battle together.
Secret Wars writer Jim Shooter recently claimed he’d had a call from Marvel regarding the potential use of some characters utilized in the original Marvel Comics run, including the Beyonder, Titania and Spider-Woman, and Marvel boss Kevin Feige finally addressed the growing chatter in an interview last month.
“I’ve seen those rumors as well,” he told Comicbook. “Why is everyone talking about that now? That’s what I want to know. I think one person writes about it, and then another person writes about it, and then everybody’s writing about it, and then it’s happening. Secret Wars is a great, giant crossover. There are a lot of great, giant crossovers that we could [adapt] — it’s the ongoing embarrassment of riches of Marvel Comics.”
