‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Co-Director Explains It’s ‘Very Difficult’ to Evolve Marvel Characters, but ‘We Need to Surprise Ourselves’ and ‘Audiences’

“Avengers: Doomsday” co-director Anthony Russo has opened up about the pressure that comes with evolving the franchise’s iconic superhero characters, explaining that finding the balance between moving the story forward and honoring those already-beloved characters can be “very difficult.”

“It’s a very difficult part of the process because, I mean, we basically just have to use our own meters because we love the characters, we love the history, we love them in the same way that many fans do,” Russo said during a Q&A after a screening of “Avengers: Endgame Encore” (via GamesRadar+).

He continued: “But the one thing we always like to remind people of, you know, fandom does not speak with a single voice. There’s a wide variety of opinion in terms of who responds to which characters and which versions of which characters people respond to, it’s a very complex relationship that people have with the characters.”

Russo also said that he and his brother and co-director Joe have “a lot of respect for the storytelling journey that these characters have had up to this point.” “That’s part of their magic, a big part of their magic. But at the same time, we need to surprise ourselves in terms of who those characters are, where they can go, what they can do, what can happen, and in doing that, we hopefully surprise audiences as well.”

The director’s comments come nearly a year after an “Avengers: Doomsday” trailer spotlighted a much more serious Thor (Chris Hemsworth) than Marvel fans had seen in 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder.” The Taika Waititi-directed film performed well at the box office upon its release, but it divided fans who felt the character had become, in Hemsworth’s own words, “too silly.”

Russo also revealed that the film’s full cast has yet to be announced. “The cast is so large, and we’ve announced some of the cast, and we haven’t announced some of the cast,” said Russo. “I get confused myself over who we’ve announced and not announced, so I have to just slow down.” So far, the confirmed cast includes Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Paul Rudd, Simu Liu, Tom Hiddleston and more.

“Avengers: Doomsday” will hit theaters on Dec. 18.