Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo say “generational divide” is largely the cause of Marvel’s recent box office returns.
Speaking with GamesRadar+, the Russo Brothers discussed why audiences’ changing tastes are behind some of Marvel’s recent flops rather than “superhero fatigue” or any other factor.
“I think it’s a reflection of the current state of everything,” Joe Russo said. “It’s difficult right now, it’s an interesting time. I think we’re in a transitional period and people don’t know quite yet how they’re going to receive stories moving forward, or what kinds of stories they’re going to want.”
He continued, “There’s a big generational divide about how you consume media. There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a theater on a certain date to see something, but it’s aging out. Meanwhile, the new generation are ‘I want it now, I want to process it now’, then moving on to the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same time. You know, it’s a very different moment in time than it’s ever been. And so I think everyone, including Marvel, is experiencing the same thing, this transition. And I think that really is probably what’s at play more than anything else.”
What did the Russo Brothers say about superhero fatigue?
With Joe Russo further noting that most people now communicate “through memes and headlines,” the two also discussed that the much-debated topic of “superhero fatigue” appears to be just “fatigue in general.”
“The superhero fatigue question was around long before the work we were doing,” Anthony Russo said. “So, it’s sort of an eternal complaint, like we always used to cite this back in our early days with superhero work. People used to complain about westerns in the same way but they lasted for decades and decades and decades. They were continually reinvented and brought to new heights as they went on.”
